Poor and vulnerable workers are more likely to work in less secure, informal employment often characterized by low skills, making them more susceptible to employment and income shocks in the face of an economic crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Various studies in several developed countries have shown that the pandemic has disproportionately affected low-wage, low-skill, informal, and minority workers (Chetty et al., 2020; Gould and Kandra, 2021; OECD, 2020; Gould and Wilson, 2020). At the other extreme, many of those at the very top of the world’s welfare distribution have thrived during the pandemic, further fueling the sense that the pandemic has exacerbated inequalities. In 2021, Forbes added a record 660 new members to its billionaires list and estimated that 86 percent of the world’s billionaires saw increases in their net worth compared to a year ago. However, whether these patterns seen in high-income countries also hold in low and middle-income countries, with vastly different economic structures, access to technology, and government capacity, remains a question.

In low and middle-income countries, the distributional impacts of the pandemic may differ from what has been observed globally among high-income countries for several reasons. The poorest households in low and middle-income countries tend to live in remote, rural areas and are more likely to be reliant on agriculture, which has generally been less affected by lockdowns and can act as a fallback when other sectors contract. Self-employment is also more common in low and middle-income economies, particularly among the bottom 40 percent of population, and thus economic impacts may not be reflected in job losses to the same extent as in high-income economies, as some may continue to work – albeit with lower earnings – until forced to fold. Additionally, while the top 20 are more likely to work in service sectors that may be more conducive to remote working arrangements such as finance, information, administration, and other professional activities, they are still significantly engaged in economic sectors for which remote work arrangements is more difficult such as retail, tourism, and manufacturing. Relatively limited scope for remote work means that the pandemic and continuing containment measures in low and middle-income countries may affect workers across the distribution similarly. At the same time, households may differ in their ability to cope and adapt to similar shocks depending on their welfare status at the onset of the crisis. Some coping mechanisms that poorer households in low and middle-income countries may resort to – namely, selling productive assets, increasing indebtedness levels, reducing food intake at critical ages, removing children from school – may have deleterious impacts on human capital and long-term individual and household prospects, which could, in turn, have serious implications for future inequality. Therefore, the question of whether the pandemic has had an equalizing effect or has exacerbated inequalities in lowand middle-income economies merits empirical exploration.

Recent studies have employed household survey data from low and middle-income countries around the world and have found that the economic impacts of the pandemic and the recovery have been uneven, with female, younger, less educated, and urban workers being more likely to stop working (Agrawal, et al., 2021; Kugler, et al., 2021). This paper adds to this literature by using high-frequency household survey data from East Asia and Pacific (EAP) countries to examine the socioeconomic and distributional impacts of the pandemic. Specifically, in this paper, we look at the pandemic’s distributional impacts in the context of three questions. First, _have poorer workers been more vulnerable to employment and earning losses than wealthier workers, or has the likelihood of experiencing losses been widespread irrespective of welfare status?_ Second, _how have strategies employed by households to cope with these shocks differed across welfare groups?_ Third _, what are the potential longer-term effects that the pandemic has given rise to?_ The East Asia and Pacific region provides a unique context in which to explore these questions for several reasons. The onset of the pandemic began in the EAP, thereby affecting travel and trade channels within 2