Why you’re ‘getting poorer’. SA’s middle class may even begin shrinking now, further reducing stability and growth.

You’re not imagining it, you are getting poorer.

South Africa’s struggling middle class is being squeezed like never before by a heavy tax burden, rising food prices, debt interest rates and the cost of avoiding crime.

There is even a very real possibility that the current middle class, about 9 million people or 16% of the population, could shrink as more and more people fall into poverty.

Professor Leslie Bank, deputy executive director of the Economic Performance and Development Programme at the Human Sciences Research Council, said the middle class in South Africa is too small and needs to increase by “at least 20% to 30%” if economic growth is to be sustainable.

The full article is available for download here