Coping and Survival Strategies in the First Three Years of Renewed Hope Dispensation Among Low-Income Earners in Lagos

The Renewed Hope Dispensation, headed by His Excellency Bola Ahmed Tinubu, removed subsidies from petroleum products leading to evident high cost of living affecting the entire populace especially low-income earners. This study, however, examines the Coping and Survival Strategies of Low-Income earners within the context of Nigeria’s First three years of the Renewed Hope Dispensation. The study adopted the Resilience Theory as its theoretical underpinning while Descriptive Research Design was adopted using both qualitative and quantitative means of inquiry. However, ten out of the twenty local government areas were randomly selected to have a fair representation. Also, one hundred low-income earners were purposively selected for the survey while three were selected for indepth interviews from each of the selected local government areas. The study found that low-income earners go through significant challenges ranging from daily provision of pressing needs such as food, transportation costs, increasing house rent, health care, among others. Therefore, low-income earners coped with the present economic hardship by priortising provision immediate personal and household materials such as food and shelter; reducing or total eradication of savings. Low-income earners’ major expectation was firmness and control of high cost of living especially in the cities and metropolitan areas. The study recommends a formidable social protection policy including credits for daily essentials, food and rents to cushion the effect of hard biting economy on the low-income earners