7.3 Index of Per Capita Household Income, by Worker Group, February 2020

FIGURE 7.3 Index of Per Capita Household Income, by Worker Group, February 2020

Source: based on CPhS data. Note: The figure shows mean levels of per capita household income (natural logarithm) by worker category. For ease of comparability, all group means are normalized to 100 in February 2020, which is used as a base because it was the last prepandemic month. 95% standard errors are reported in shaded areas around the group means.

mean per capita income of each group in February 2020—the last pre-COVID month— is normalized to 100. The figure also shows the 95 percent confidence intervals of the estimated means.

Figure 7.3 demonstrates that, while all three types of households experienced sharp drops in per capita income in April and May 2020 on average, informal wage households were affected the most severely. The log mean per capita income of informal wage households declined by nearly 20 percent between February 2020 and April 2020. In comparison, the log mean per capita income of formal wage households and selfemployed households declined by 10 percent during that period.

Incomes began to recover to pre-COVID levels after May 2020. Mean per capita incomes rebounded most rapidly among informal wage households. The differential between these households and other types of households in the mean post-COVID income decline did not persist beyond May 2020.