Overview
- Using Pakistan’s national poverty line, the Bank projects poverty at 25.3% in 2023–24—up seven percentage points since 2021–22—with survey-based updates pending release of HIES 2024–25.
- The reversal is linked to COVID-19, high inflation, and the 2022 floods, with further 2025 flooding weighing on growth and exposing limits of a consumption-led model.
- Over 85% of jobs are informal and real wages for low-income sectors rose only 2–3% from 2011 to 2021, leaving many households precariously close to poverty.
- The report details severe human capital and service gaps and persistent spatial disparities, with rural poverty more than double urban and rates exceeding 40% in Balochistan.
- The Bank outlines four pathways—invest in people and places, build shock‑responsive safety nets, rebalance fiscal policy and subsidies, and strengthen data systems—while the government says it is expanding welfare and improving subsidy targeting.