Eating less to keep lights on |
Red alert: Households are cutting meals to pay electricity bills. In the past decade, food’s share of household spending has dropped from 43 percent to 37 percent, while utilities have climbed from 15 percent to 25 percent. The plate has shrunk so the meter can run.
Life in Pakistan is no longer expensive – it is heavy and getting heavier by the month. Every month, the Pakistani household must lift a growing load: electricity and gas bills, school fees, transport, medical expenses, rent, food inflation–and now taxes on income that barely survive. None of these burdens arrive alone. They arrive together. And they arrive every single month.
Households respond the only way they can. They skip meat. They skip medicines.
They pull children out of school—some are left with no choice but to push children into work. Lo and behold, households cannot skip electricity bills, gas bills,........