“Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings”.
(Nelson Mandela)
With the rising cost of living and subsequent inflation, some people from impoverished sections succumb to economic pressure, consequently ending their own lives. 'Inflacide' combines 'inflation' and 'suicide'. It refers to the devastating impact of inflation on mental health, potentially leading to suicidal thoughts or actions due to economic strain and financial desperation, including debt. A 24-year-old young man named Tayyab, who worked at a local hospital in Sargodha, reportedly ended his life due to financial stress.
A note found in his pocket listed unpaid debts and showed he was deeply worried. In the note, Tayyab wrote: “After my death, I request my family to repay the debts I owe to people so that my path in the Hereafter may be a little easier, and I may be spared from some torment.”
Imagine the psychological struggle he must have endured before deciding to end his life. Contemplate the cost of trauma emanating from suicide for the parents. Imagine the physical, emotional, and economic investment of parenting in raising a child from birth to adulthood. Then, imagine the shattering of dreams – both individual and parental – associated with one's child.
Parents saw sweet dreams that one day their child would extend emotional care and financial support. But the inflacide of their loved one has left a huge debt to be paid back, as he listed in the note. This debt-induced suicide should shake the economic policymakers sitting in their ivory towers. They should come out to see the impact of economic landmines – economic deprivation – taking a toll on ordinary people. Tayyab's case typifies the deep-seated, everyday economic struggle of the vast majority whose income is disproportionate to their daily financial needs. Beggary is deeply woven into the financial fabric of the majority.
The root cause of this financial crunch, shouldered by multitudes of the population, is a lack of equal opportunities, a lack of income-generating sources, a lack of job creation, paltry pay for private employees like daily wagers, a lack of social safety for working-class people, and a lack of political will to uplift those descending into monetary misery due to exploding inflation, etc. Once caught in the crossfire of debt taken during economic hardships, one is left with no option but to end their own life, just to end the everyday anxiety, psychological burden, threats, and shame.
The elephant in the room
Tayyab's case of inflacide is just the tip of the iceberg. The rising cost of living and diminishing purchasing power are pushing the economically disadvantaged sections of society into the cruel clutches of debt. Under its heavy weight, the failure to pay back, tauntings, and psychological burden become too strong to carry, and thus, the burden of life becomes heavier with every passing day. Wider sections of society are in the economic bracket of "earning and spending" in our country. Under economic struggle and subsequent financial constraints, they borrow in times of need, varying from healthcare costs to ballooning utility bills and everyday expenses of day-to-day life due to both the devaluation of the rupee and the consequent spiking of food prices. Life is harder for all, especially working-class people who live in rented properties in urban areas.
The PML-N-led coalition government had promised to establish a welfare state while ensuring streams of milk and honey for the general public, but heavy taxes levied in the fiscal budget for FY 26 opened the floodgates of inflation. The government's inability to boost the economic conditions of the vast majority is gathering public indignation against the imprudent economic model. The economically disadvantaged majority is expressing economic outrage over the storm of inflation, but the government is deaf to their concerns conveyed through social media platforms and by economic establishments, including economy writers.
The rising poverty of the working class in this country can be imagined from the fact that despite back-breaking labour throughout the year, not to talk about saving a penny for a rainy day, they can't even keep their homes afloat. With entry into the corridors of power, many politicians change their colour and character, and the present lot is no exception. They start compromising on the very ideals they once advocated for and held dear. The incumbent government, which pitched itself as a pro-people civilian setup in economic terms, has shown remarkable consistency with the status quo in terms of economic management by burdening the already burdened, speaking volumes about its volte-face.
A 24-year-old man named Tayyab ended his life due to financial stress. In a note found in his pocket, he listed his unpaid debts and wrote: “After my death, I request my family to repay the debts... so that my path in the Hereafter may be a little easier.” His story is just the tip of the iceberg.
Given the recent price hike of essential items of daily use, even the salaried class is struggling to make ends meet, so what about the survival of those underpaid, underprivileged, and unemployed? Since the state has miserably failed to provide quality education and healthcare to the population, people enrol their children in the private education system to ensure a quality education, and they opt for the private healthcare system for better nursing care; as a result, a large chunk of one's income is spent on availing these facilities. This is why even the salaried class is found to be under financial stress. Rising prices of commodities have adversely impacted the spending capacity of both the ordinary and salaried classes. Either they would compromise on food intake or the education of their new generation, thus a healthy and educated Pakistan is, was, and will remain, a distant dream.
According to the World Bank, Pakistan's poverty rate has risen to 44.7% under new global income thresholds. This is an increase from the previous estimate of 39.8% and is largely due to the World Bank's revision of international poverty lines to reflect updated global cost of living data. The new poverty line for lower-middle-income countries like Pakistan is now $4.20 per person per day, compared to the previous $3.65. Additionally, the extreme poverty line has been revised from $2.15 to $3 per person per day, increasing the percentage of Pakistanis living in extreme poverty to 16.5% from 4.9%. A major chunk of the population lives below the poverty line. Despite this, the ruling elites continue to neglect the urgent recalibration of the economic model according to the emerging economic realities faced by the vast majority.
The parasitic tendency of rulers, in terms of extracting more from the poverty-stricken bodies of Pakistanis, is evident. Imagine the taxes levied and the ballooning utility bills, with extractive methods like the fixed charges introduced in bills, speaking volumes beyond what this piece of writing can portray.
The federal cabinet's Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) approved the hike in fixed gas charges for all consumers from 01 July. The ECC decided to increase fixed charges by 50% for domestic consumers and shift the partial burden to bulk, power sector, and industrial consumers. According to the Ogra notification, fixed charges for domestic consumers in the protected category have risen to Rs600 from Rs400, while those in the non-protected category have to pay Rs1,500 as opposed to the previous charge of Rs1,000. For non-protected consumers exceeding consumption of 1.5 cubic hectometres (hm³), the price has risen to Rs3,000 from Rs2,000. Gas subscribers are already paying for the units consumed by them, including sales tax. This fixed charges scheme is nothing but a robbery of the hard-earned cash of cash-starved sections of the population.
Justifying the unjustified
As per media reports, owing to heavy taxation in the federal budget for FY26, there has been a sharp rise in the prices of essential items in the open market, including milk, sugar, ghee, medicines, cooking oil, tea, toothpaste, pulses, flour, refined flour, gram flour, and soap, etc. People waited with bated breath to hear about economic relief and social safety, but what they got was inflated prices of commodities. The sugar export-import scandal and subsequent crisis of the commodity put an extra economic burden on the public purse. However, reportedly, Federal Minister for Food Security and Research Rana Tanveer Hussain came up with a strange logic that sugar was cheaper in our country when compared to its rate in Iran and Bangladesh. He also defended the sugar import scandal, saying that the export-import of the commodity in question has been in practice for the last ten years. He dispelled the impression of sugar inflation in the country, citing that it was still cheaper in our country when compared to Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Iran. According to him, it was being sold at a higher rate in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Iran, at Rs 187, 173, and 250 per kg, respectively. He claimed that sugar was being sold at Rs 172 in Pakistan, which is nothing but political hyperbole.
The beneficiaries of the fleecing financial framework leave no stone unturned to defend their undemocratic and exploitative economic arrangements. They are quite blind to ground realities in terms of the impact of such pro-rich policies on ordinary people in the country, following the government's failure to ensure the announced price of sugar. No rocket science is required to know how the sugar crisis was created and who the beneficiaries of this man-made crisis are, through hoarding, black marketing, cartelisation, and subsequent inflated prices in the open market. Besides, comparing the price tag with countries like Afghanistan and Iran, which are war-torn and slapped with economic sanctions, respectively, says a lot.
This also speaks of the utter political poverty of those at the helm of the country's affairs. Those living in glass houses seem oblivious to the abject poverty and fast-shrinking public purchasing power. One notices that the prices of commodities keep soaring due to the climbing curve of energy prices. Its inflationary impact directly hits those who are already hit hardest in an imaginable way. Visit a market once a hike in petrol and diesel is announced; the traders and shopkeepers who sell items of daily use at inflated rates remind the retailers: "Don't you know the petrol price was increased yesterday?" Besides, fares in public transport and taxi services soar after every increase in the price of energy. At the end of the day, it is the marginalised sections who are paying the price.
In Pakistan, a lack of opportunity, paltry pay, and a lack of political will are pushing the economically disadvantaged into debt and despair, sometimes with fatal consequences. This 'inflacide' should shake policymakers sitting in their ivory towers.
The discriminatory economic model can be measured from the fact that the established political order leaves homeless people to fend for themselves. Meanwhile, members of parliament, powerful people like bureaucrats, judges, and generals, despite being handsomely paid, are entitled to perks and privileges like residential plots, subsidies, free units of electricity and gas, etc. And the shirtless are left to sell their shirts to feed the hungry mouths—the family members. Though they work all day long, they can't make ends meet. Taking from the poor and giving to the rich creates crippling economic conditions for the countrymen. Until this is reversed, people will continue to bear the brunt of the bad economic model.
The vast majority is paying taxes, both direct and indirect, but in return gets nothing—neither a standardised public education system, healthcare, clean drinking water, nor a decent and peaceful environment. Consider the tanker mafia in urban centres. On the one hand, the government deprives them through exploitative economic arrangements; on the other hand, muggers deprive them of their valuables like cash drawn from ATMs, mobile phones, motorcycles, vehicles, etc. at gunpoint. Those who offer resistance are silenced for life. What is the difference between highway robbery and the extractive economic model being pursued by our policymakers.
Unemployment and Malnutrition
Reportedly, as many as 4.5 million individuals are unemployed in the country, with the youth aged 15-24 having the highest unemployment rate of 11.1 percent, according to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2023-24. These figures are based on the 2020-21 Labour Force Survey. Moreover, the unemployment ratio is higher among females, with 14.4% of women unemployed compared to 10% of men.
In 2024, Pakistan continues to face significant challenges in nutrition and food security. Despite some progress, the country still struggles with high rates of malnutrition and food insecurity. High food prices, climatic shocks, and reduced livelihood opportunities contribute to acute food insecurity. Around 7.9 million people (22% of the population) are facing high levels of acute food insecurity.
Denial and defiance of minimum wages
The predatory private job market continues to exploit even the skilled and educated lot. The minimum wage announced by the federal government is between 37,000 to 42,000. With this minimum wage, many social media activists, on the heels of the fiscal budget for FY 26, invited those in economic decision-making centres to make an individual monthly budget given the rising cost of living, ballooning energy prices, and subsequent inflation. Even that paltry pay is not being paid to employees.
According to Dawn, in Pakistan, while the minimum wage is set by the government, some industries and employers fail to comply with these regulations, particularly in the private sector. Specifically, a significant portion of private industrial units in Sindh and many factories in Pakistan do not adhere to the minimum wage of PKR 37,000. This issue is widespread, with reports indicating that over 80% of private industrial units and around 95% of factories in some areas are not paying the mandated minimum wage. According to the Sindh Assembly's Public Accounts Committee (PAC), over 80% of private industrial units are not implementing the order of minimum wage.
"Around 95% of factories do not give minimum wage to their workers," said Nasir Mansoor, General Secretary of the National Trade Union Federation (NTUF). The informal sector accounts for more than seven-tenths (73%) of employment in main jobs outside agriculture, more in rural (75%) than in urban areas (71%). The informal labour sector is the epicentre of exploitation in terms of wages, thanks to poor regulatory oversight. Why should policymakers bother about the implementation of the wage in question? After all, it is the issue of the ordinary. The cries made by them do not reach the ears of those sitting in power palaces.
Brain Drain
Consequently, highly educated professionals are leaving the country in search of better salaries and decent working environments abroad. Even countless desperate people take the perilous path of a boat journey. According to an Express Tribune report, Pakistan's nurses are leaving faster than ever, chasing better pay, safer workplaces, and futures that feel possible. In just six months of 2025, over 336,000 professionals left. Nurses alone now make up 5.8% of all highly educated emigrants. Their outflow is growing by 54.2% every year.
Hospitals are short-staffed, and nursing schools can't keep up. What is left behind is a healthcare system under pressure and a country with fewer hands to heal it. This speaks to a plethora of problems and multiple crises that have plagued Pakistan. Despite this, no heed is paid to the economic situation spiralling out of control and the subsequent human capital flight. If measures are not taken to keep brain drain at bay, our dear country will be yearning for the intellectual and professional establishment known as the best brains in their respective professional fields.
How Nero fiddles while Rome burns
We are in the eye of the storm called climate change. We have been bearing the brunt of climate-induced catastrophic conditions for a decade. Despite this, our preparedness and institutional alertness continue to falter in the face of disaster. Following the human and infrastructural casualties, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif directed the immediate upgrade and full activation of the Meteorological Department's early warning system as part of federal efforts to mitigate the impact of severe monsoon weather. This belated response after the monsoon strike speaks of bad governance. The authorities concerned wake up after every disaster, only to descend into a deep slumber.
The PM reportedly admitted that neither the federal government nor the provincial governments did what they should have done in terms of early flood warnings. Keep complaining about the international cold shoulder in terms of climate finance won't help out. We need national and institutional long-term and timely mitigating mechanisms. This is why international forums providing climate financial donations ask tough questions about what we did in terms of preparedness aimed at preventing catastrophe.
Steamrolling bills in Parliament is the new normal. What the ruling cliques need to focus on is that person- or party-specific legislation always backfires. Today, these hurriedly passed laws might target those falling out of favour; tomorrow, these steamrolled laws will bite those at the helm of the country's affairs, as today's government is tomorrow's opposition.
The government is more focused on targeting opposition politicians, crushing dissent, and freedom of the pen, which many believe is the agenda of hidden hands advanced by the sitting civilian setup, rather than doing its primary duty of delivering to the masses. It is very difficult to disagree with critics who call the present parliament a rubber stamp. Rubber-stamping legislation is a violation of democratic principles enshrined in the constitution. The opposition is fighting for political survival. Putting pressure on the government in terms of formulating a pro-public economic agenda is not a priority for the party, as it is embroiled in inter-party intrigues and subsequent struggles for individual influence and space within the party. When elephants fight, it is the grass that gets crushed.
There are cracks in the coalition government, with the Pakistan People's Party making its reservations public about the impending reduction of the provincial financial share in the National Finance Commission (NFC) and looming threats to the 18th Amendment. The problem is the parochial thinking while running the country. PM Shahbaz Sharif's political experience was limited to the provincial level; he was elevated to the position of national leader. Cool-headedness is not the only criterion for running the affairs of the state; competence is needed to ensure national cohesiveness while dispensing the duty of running a state.
The governments (federal and provincial) are obsessed with infrastructural development, particularly in urban centres, rather than industrial revolution, because such infrastructural development and transportation facilities are prioritised to curry favour with voters. The majority lives in rural Pakistan, where people lack opportunities for upward social mobility. Without industrial growth, job creation remains undermined. As a result, people are sinking to the lowest rung of society. Under such circumstances, poverty is rising in Pakistan. Unfortunately, political leadership shuts its eyes to emerging economic realities. They continue to fiddle while Rome burns.
What is the use of stabilising the economy, being touted in the country, when its fruits don't reach the common man? Economic stability achieved through artificial underpinning won't help fix the national economic crisis, nor can it keep the rising poverty of the working-class people at bay. Pakistan needs a new economic framework that can slate a new social contract. A long-term economic national action plan is needed to navigate the nation from the current economic quagmire. Until democratic distribution of national prosperity and a pro-people political framework appear on the horizon, Pakistanis will suffer. Because the economic potpourri – prosperity is consumed by economic leeches, elites, perched on the body politic of Pakistan.
There is no light at the end of the tunnel
In 2022, the unemployed Syed Ahsan Raza Rizvi reportedly committed suicide by hanging himself with a rope after killing his wife and three children inside his apartment located near Jinnah International Airport, Karachi. He also listed the debt he owed to people and was left with no option but the unthinkable.
Earlier, in November 2022, the terrifying deaths of five family members in Karachi's Malir area made headlines after a man attempted to kill himself by slitting his throat with a sharp object after slaughtering his wife and three minor daughters inside his home in the Shamsi Society, following financial hardships.
From Karachi to Sargodha, the story is the same – unemployment and grinding poverty of working-class people, sometimes culminating in harrowing tales of physical termination. The parliament is a "rich men's club,” dominated by billionaires, capitalists, business tycoons, retired bureaucrats, generals, and landlord. Across the aisles, they are known for their historical indifference to voters: the Have-Nots who are the majority. Inflation is the driving force behind inflacide. Poverty is a policy choice in Pakistan and elsewhere. Bread is becoming unaffordable. Despite this, it is not part of the national narrative or part of the debate in economic decision-making centres.
"I wake up early in the morning to join my duty. I keep serving tea to customers and dispatching orders to nearby shops. Angry customers scold me over petty issues like delayed delivery of water and tea during rush hours, not to mention the bossy behaviour of the hotel owner. At the end of the day, I take home only five hundred rupees, insufficient to make ends meet. When I return home, I find my children sleeping. My craving to talk to them is mired in mundane economic struggles. Living is a living hell", Kashif, hotel waiter in Taluka Bahrani District Larkana, said.
US socialist leader Eugene Victor Debs who was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for ten years for challenging the established unjust political order comprising the rich minority neglecting the urgent needs of the deprived majority, and speaking truth to power as early as in 1918. Before his conviction by the court of law, he made an impassioned lengthy statement saying, "I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and factories; I am thinking of the men in the mines and on the railroads; I am thinking of the women who, for a paltry wage, are compelled to work out their lives; of the little children, who in this system, are robbed of their childhood, and in their tender years are seized in the remorseless grasp of Mammon, and forced into the industrial dungeons, there to feed the machines while they themselves are being starved body and soul. I see them dwarfed, diseased, stunted, their little lives broken, and their hopes blasted, because in this high noon of our twentieth century civilisation money is still so much more important than human life. Gold is god and rules in the affairs of men."
In the high noon of our 21st century Pakistan, one is thinking this morning of the deprived majority.