Kenya, I hear, is a middle-class country. Because someone tweaked with figures and raised the value of GDP, we are supposed to be suddenly richer! Well, try to prepare your own balance sheet and see what assets and liabilities you have.
It seems having a car, staying in slightly expensive neighbourhood or paying a mortgage and knowing those exotic names of foods and drinks qualify you to be middle-class. Each economy has a way of defining middle class. But generally, this is the social class that is neither poor nor wealthy. The drunken group that is loose with money. It is aspirational and willing to splash, just to remain ‘middle-class’.
The strength and stability of an economy can be measured by the size and strength of its middle class. This can’t be said of Kenya. Developed countries anchor their middle-income status on entrepreneurship and industrialisation, not state-induced jobs.
The African Development Bank classification kills the micro-joys most of Kenyans have been enjoying over this middle-class thing. It gives floating, lower and upper middle class. Half, or about 44.9%, of Kenyans are middle class, according to government. Within this, 28.1% is the floating middle type and 16.8% is the core middle class made up of the lower and upper middle.
The floating makes the largest part of Kenya’s middle class. These are people who have just emerged from poverty and unless well supported, are vulnerable to sliding right back to the 46% of those who live in poverty. The economy is needed to expand to keep their wealth growing because, as it were, they are mostly workers who ride on quality education and healthcare.
The Kenyan middle class dream is manifested in hard work and loyal employees. Job hopping has been the way to better salaries and middle income status. But that’s a problem for HR to deal with.
Of concern, however, is the fact that this middle-class Kenyans is a bubble inflated by loans and unsustainable earnings from corruption and other unexplained sources. Many of the cars and houses are financed through bank, Sacco or company loans. That’s very dangerous. In case the economy suffers a major shock, this group would turn instantly into paupers. Credit givers will have the last laugh.
Kenyans should accept the simple fact. Most of us are miserably poor. The so-called wealth we boast of is an illusion. It belongs to credit vendors. I can’t agree more with Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist James Carville: It’s the economy, stupid!
The author, who writes a weekly column for PD Weekend, is the managing editor of BusinessToday. email: [email protected] / Twitter @mulunda
Leave a comment