UN finds soaring poverty in virus-hit Latin America region

A cat stretches in front of a bakery at La Vega market in Santiago, Chile, Thursday, March 4, 2021. More than 20 million people were pushed into poverty during pandemic-plagued 2020 across Latin America and the Caribbean, the U.N. economic agency for the region reported Thursday. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — More than 20 million people were pushed into poverty during pandemic-plagued 2020 across Latin America and the Caribbean, the U.N. economic agency for the region reported Thursday.

Poverty as a whole rose to afflict a total of 208 million people — 33.7% from 30.5% of the population — in a year when the overall gross domestic product collapsed by 7.7%.

Extreme poverty — those without the resources to cover basic food requirements — rose to encompass 78 million people, 12.5% of the region's population, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. That's the highest percentage in 20 years.

Poverty as a whole rose to afflict a total of 208 million people — 33.7% from 30.5% of the population — in a year when the overall gross domestic product collapsed by 7.7%. The report said the situation would have been worse without household subsidy programs enacted by many governments to cushion the blow for some 84 million households.

The report presented online by agency director Alicia Bárcena also found worsening rates of inequality and unemployment across a region that accounts for just 8.4% of the world's population but nearly 28 percent of global deaths from COVID-19.

The report said more than 507,000 people died of COVID-19 last year across Latin America and the Caribbean.

The report said that deteriorating economic, health and education conditions for households “could forge a vicious cycle of poverty and bad health conditions for wide sectors of the population.”

Bárcena said levels of inequality have reached “unsustainable” levels and she called for creation of “a true welfare state, a task long postponed in the region.”

Unemployment rose 2.6 percentage points to 10.7 by the end of the year, with the greatest losses among women, informal workers, youths and migrants.

More than 165 million students were affected by school closures, even if some — especially those with economic means — were able to turn to remote learning systems.

Bárcena also noted “great inequality in access to vaccines” needed to escape from the problem.