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SPECIFIC POLICY TO REDUCE POVERTY DURING PANDEMIC

PRELIMINARY

Covid-19 or better known as the Corona Virus has become a public

concern since its appearance was detected in China for the first time in early
2020. The death of thousands of people due to this virus has made it the center of
attention of many countries, including Indonesia. The COVID-19 pandemic has
been proven to have put pressure on economic and social conditions in Indonesia
since the end of 2019. This economic impact has had a wide impact throughout
Indonesia. The economies of each region are under threat, coupled with the
regional conditions that are worse than before. Because of this, the Indonesian
government immediately took aggressive steps so that the spread rate could be
reduced as much as possible.

Indonesia prefers social distancing as a solution rather than locking down,

which is locking access to and from the area for anyone to prevent the spread of
the virus which is commonly used by most countries. The essence of social
restrictions is to stay away from direct social activities with other people, while
lockdown means that an area will be isolated and there will be a complete stop of
all activities in the area. The fundamental reason why Indonesia prefers to impose
social restrictions is that many Indonesians rely on daily wages, so it will be
vulnerable for them to be unable to make a living if the lockdown is imposed.
Maintaining social distancing at least imposes several appeals to all citizens,
including working from home, studying from home, and worshiping at home.
Because Indonesia is a developing country, the problem of poverty is an
important and central problem in its development efforts. The diversity of views
on poverty shows that poverty is a multi-dimensional phenomenon. This
phenomenon makes measuring poverty difficult. However, poverty must still be
measured as an illustration and material for poverty reduction policy making. The
World Bank Institute (2020) suggests four reasons poverty must be measured,
namely

(1) so that the poor continue to be on the agenda and be noticed,

(2) identification of the poor and the need for interventions regarding
poverty alleviation,

(3) monitoring and evaluation of projects or intervention policies for the

poor, and

(4) evaluation of the effectiveness of government institutions in poverty

alleviation.

The poverty rate has a significant positive effect on the total COVID-19
cases. One reason this occurs is that poor individuals and populations do not
have access to health services and may be misinformed and miscommunicated
due to lack of access to information channels, thus, they are more likely to
ignore public health warnings (Ahmed, Ahmed, Pissarides, & Stiglitz, 2020).
Previous research by (Patel et al., 2020) stated several main reasons such as
overcrowded accommodation, limited access to private outdoor space,
inflexible work, and unstable working conditions are factors that increase
exposure to COVID-19 in poor populations. .
DISCUSSION

The State of Indonesia, especially the things that the government has done,
has issued various activities which can support the people's economy,
including:

1. There is government assistance through the BRI Bank which disbursed

assistance of Rp. 2,500,000, -

2. There is government assistance in electricity financing, where there is

assistance of a few percent which gives 100% for 450 watt power users

3. The government carries out regular updates of pendusuk which has a

plan in the program data collection as a family of hope (PKH)

4. There is government assistance from government assistance of Rp.

600.000, - for 4 consecutive months.

5. Reducing the burden on public expenditures, especially the poor and

near-poor, especially by reducing administered prices. Among them:

- Reducing the price of fuel, which is one of the largest components of

expenditure for the poor (5 percent for the urban poor and 4 percent for the
rural poor).

- Reducing the price of three kilograms of LPG, which is mostly

consumed by the lower middle class. This is also in line with the price of
propane and butane, which are the main raw materials for LPG, which fell
sharply.
CLOSING

A pandemic is an epidemic at the international level which until now is

increasing every month for people who are infected with the disease. The
Covid 19 pandemic cannot be underestimated even though the disease is not
visible but the impact that is felt will be seen. The presence of a country at this
time is also very much awaited by those who have an unstable economic
cycle. Community life will be a little helped because of the steps that the
government has taken. Some assistance from the government will be deemed
capable of providing benefits during a pandemic which will be reused for
those who have a way of doing business or use the assistance appropriately.
However, this is considered inadequate when looking and looking ahead to
see that the turnover of this assistance will create excessive constraints such as
insufficient capital for someone to make the business.

REFRENCES

https://money.kompas.com/read/2020/05/06/110100926/5-langkah-untuk-
kurangi-lonjakan-angka-kemiskinan-akibat-pandemi-covid-19?page=all

https://agenbrilink.net/bri-news/syarat-bri-untuk-nasabah-penerima-bantuan-
kredit-24-juta/

Ahmadi, M., Sharifi, A., Dorosti, S., Jafarzadeh Ghoushchi, S., & Ghanbari, N.
(2020). Investigation of effective climatology parameters on COVID-19 outbreak
in Iran. Science of the Total Environment, 729.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138705
Ahmed, F., Ahmed, N., Pissarides, C., & Stiglitz, J. (2020). Why inequality could
spread COVID19. The Lancet Public Health, 5(5), e240.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(20)30085-2