Challenges of Poverty and Unemployment Despite massive reprioritisation and allocation of resources to eliminate poverty and deal with the apartheid legacy, inequalities that largely depict apartheid racial divisions remain firmly in place. Over half of all workers earn less than the household subsistence level for a family of six. Meanwhile, the richest 10 per cent of households still get almost half the national income. We must now accept that those inequalities are increasingly taking a class dimension. The gap amongst Africans themselves is on the rise.
Poverty has devastating effects on our society and our economy.
It undermines the productivity of our workers by hindering education and skills development. It cuts back economic growth by limiting domestic sales of goods and services. Increasingly, unemployment and poor quality jobs lie at the root of poverty. Between 30 and 40 per cent of our economically active people are unemployed. Employers have begun to replace quality jobs with worse-paid, less secure sweatshop work.