The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) has released recently the findings from the Household Integrated Economic Survey (HIES). This survey was undertaken of a stratified random sample of 32,814 households in diverse locations throughout the country in 2024-25. This implies a sampling fraction of one sample per 1250 households.

This survey has been undertaken after a gap of six years, as the last HIES was in 2018-19. Earlier, the survey had been conducted more frequently, with a gap of two to three years. Therefore, the HIES of 2024-25 has a special significance as it informs the status of households who have been through COVID-19 in 2019-20, the devastating flood of 2022-23 and the extremely high inflation in 2022-23 and 2023-24 with little growth in the GDP.

The first indicator of importance is the change in real per capita household income between 2018-19 and 2024-25. The nominal average monthly household income is reported at Rs 82,179 in 2024-25, with the average household size of almost 6. This implies a per capita income of Rs 13,742.

The corresponding magnitude in 2018-19 was Rs 6,658. This indicates a cumulative increase in the nominal per capita income of over 106 percent.

However, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has shown a cumulative increase from 2018-19 to 2024-25 of 125.3 percent. Therefore, there has actually been a fall by 2024-25 in real per capita household income to Rs 6,099 per month at 2018-19 prices. Cumulatively, this is a fall of 8.4 percent. Therefore, on average households in Pakistan are significantly worse off in 2024-25 compared to the situation in 2018-19.

This is in sharp contrast to the estimates by PBS of the National Income Accounts, according to which........

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