Almost 30% of SA households depended on grants from the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) for their main source of income in 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on people’s lives and the economy.
Stats SA’s general household survey 2020 report, released on Thursday, found that 28.8% of households reported the grants as their main source of income. These payments remain the second-most important source of income in the country.
The grants are a vital safety net, especially in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo, the country’s two poorest provinces. In the Eastern Cape, 63.6% of households received grants. The figure in Limpopo was 69.3%.
Solly Molayi, Stats SA chief director for social statistics, said the percentage of people accessing grants increased to 34.9% in 2020 after the introduction of R350 Social Relief of Distress Grant (SRD) in the wake of Covid-19.
“The percentage of households that received at least one grant increased to 52.4%,” Molayi added.
Excluding SRDs, the number of people accessing grants would have been 30.7%, down from 34.9% in 2019.
Molayi said the percentage of households connected to the national electricity grid increased to 90% in 2020 from 76.7% in 2002, as reliance on wood, coal and paraffin for cooking and heating declined.
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