Jordan Feature: Protest, The Pressures of Poverty, and the Middle Class
Sunday, January 16, 2011 at 9:58
On Friday, an estimated 8000 people --- in an "unprecedented development" --- protested on the streets of Amman and other Jordanian cities over rising food prices and unemployment. They challenged Prime Minister Sair Rifai with chants, "Down with Rifai's government. Unify yourselves because the government wants to eat your flesh and raises fuel prices to fill their pockets with millions." There were reports of tanks surrounding major cities and the establishment of checkpoints and barriers.
In that context, we note this article from Yasmeen Tabbaa in Muftah:
Today, much of the political discourse in Jordan focuses on the importance of the middle class as a stabilizing and reformist force in the country. Viewed as a source of skilled labor with potent purchasing power, the middle class has been variously described as having the entrepreneurial capabilities as well as the democratic tendencies necessary for Jordan’s economic and political development. At the same time, however, the current and future strength of the country’s middle class has been a source of concern for many.
For some time now, politicians and academics in Jordan have argued that the country’s middle class has been in steady decline for the last two decades. Some of the most commonly cited explanations for this drop include Jordan’s 1989 economic crash, the subsequent IMF-led structural adjustment programs promoting free market policies, the retreat of state services and safety nets, declining public sector wages, and the more recent rise in the cost of living. With concerns about Jordan’s middle class continuing to mount, the government committed to expand and protect this vital segment of the population in its 2010 Executive Agenda.
As the country’s middle class had never been rigorously defined or examined, much of these fears developed out of anecdotal evidence lacking in hard data to establish whether and/or how the Jordanian middle class has suffered. Finally, in 2008, the Center for Strategic Studies (CSS) at the University of Jordan took the first steps towards a comprehensive study of the Jordanian middle class, publishing a research paper on economic growth, income distribution, and the middle class. In 2010, the authors of this study partnered with Jordan’s Ministry of Planning and International cooperation to conduct a follow up report, in response to the growing public debate about the deterioration of the country’s middle class.
Both the 2008 and 2010 studies confirmed that Jordan’s middle class has been under substantial pressures over the past decade, as a result of the rising cost of living, removal of state subsidies, introduction of taxes, and the absence of a commensurate rise in wages. At the same time, these reports found that the rise in unproductive sources of income amongst middle class households has eroded the group’s economic and political force. Most importantly, however, the reports’ findings have sparked a new interest in the wellbeing of Jordan’s middle class, moving the debate beyond a mere concern with income levels towards discussions about quality of life. These conversations, in turn, have begun to push Jordan’s policy makers and government officials to recognize the futility of focusing exclusively on the eradication of abject poverty and to appreciate the dire need for protecting, expanding and creating a robust middle class.
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