World Water Day: Poorest People Go Broke Buying Water, Rich People Get It Cheap

 

 

Did you know that the poorest people in the world pay more of their income to get clean water than anyone else?

Today is “World Water Day.” In a broader sense you might say that every day is “World Water Day,” if you don’t want to die of thirst. In developed countries, water is clean and very cheap. In poor, undeveloped countries with weak public infrastructure, many people are forced to buy water from private vendors, who charge exorbitant prices. It is a classic example of the poor being hit with greater expenses than the rich. 

The LA Times covers a new report out today from the group WaterAid that show just how impossible the situation for those at the bottom of the least developed nations:

In Papua New Guinea, for example, where 60% of the country’s 7.3 million population is without safe water, the poorest of the poor pay as much as 54% of their daily earnings for about 13 gallons of water from a delivery service, according to the report... In Madagascar, people who rely on tanker trucks for their water supply would spend as much as 45% of their daily income to get just the recommended daily minimum supply, according to the report. And in Mozambique, families who depend on black-market vendors for water could spend up to 100 times as much for the resource than people who have access to a community tap subsidized by the government.
In developed parts of the world, a standard water bill is as little as 0.1% of the income of a minimum-wage earner, according to the report.

Delivering clean water to all citizens is a great example of the usefulness of government development funded by tax dollars that benefits everyone.