Progress undone by pandemic

ABSTRACT

The socioeconomically diverse group of individuals known as the middle class is situated between the top class and the lower class. Small and medium sized company owners, professionals, government employees, and skilled workers make up the majority of the middle class. These individuals share certain social traits and beliefs, such as a commitment to hard work, thriftiness, and personal responsibility. Nevertheless, the middle class has a wide range of cultural, social, and educational traits. Given the variety of the middle class, a single measure of their ability to buy things best describes them. Progressive economic growth has elevated a number of households into the middle class throughout time. A Pew Research Center analysis states that, on average, 54 million more individuals joined the middle class each year between 2011 and 2019. According to the research, the global middle class would consist of around 132 billion people in 2020, or 17.1% of the world's population. The middle class has significantly grown, particularly in emerging nations. However, the Covid-19 epidemic has halted the expansion of the middle class globally. The COVID-19 pandemic has also split the middle class, separating those who work in the public sector, receive government pensions, own small businesses, work for large corporations, or have retired from the private sector and have good future security plans. Those who work in industries like pharmaceutical, information technology, and healthcare, which are least affected by restrictions and lockdowns, are also affected. These two segments of the middle class, government employees with advanced degrees who can work from home and make a living and blue collar workers who are unable to do so are currently going through separate stages of life.