A lot will be said this week about South Africa’s economic growth number being too slow to create jobs and improve living standards. What must also be added to that analysis is that the country is not even holding the line on living standards, but is allowing that line to slip.

South Africa's economy slowed to an annual growth rate of 0.9% in the second quarter of 2026, down from 1.9% in the first quarter, according to the latest numbers from Statistics South Africa (Stats SA).

South Africa’s population growth is roughly 1.2%. This means that the rate of economic growth has fallen behind the rate of population growth. When economists compare the rate of economic growth to the rate of population growth, they produce a number called GDP per capita, which measures the total wealth generated in the economy divided by all the people in the country, adjusted for the rate of inflation. Another way of thinking about that is the number provides a baseline for what is happening with national living standards.

Over the past decade –plus, South Africa’s economic growth rate has on several occasions fallen behind the population growth rate and the consequences are set out in the chart below, which tracks real GDP per capita from 1994 to the present.

Real per capita GDP grew strongly between the end of the Asian financial crisis in 1998 and the collapse of Thabo Mbeki’s government a decade later. Thereafter the figure fell and South Africa has continued getting poorer for most years of the past decade.

The chart below shows that same GDP per capita number compared to the growth rate of the country’s economy, which is to simply hammer home the point that the source of all the country’s social and political problems is that the economic growth rate is far too low.

What does that mean in practice?

For households facing a low-growth economy that does not create jobs, it means fewer wages coming into the home, weaker bargaining power for those still in work, and more dependants supported by each income. Government also collects little additional revenue, so the services those households rely on keep deteriorating.

This has serious implications for South Africa’s politics. The African National Congress (ANC) lost its national majority in 2024 due to a decade-long stagnation in the material circumstances of people, which is what underpins political support in South Africa.

The Government of National Unity’s (GNU) support rests on the same foundation. What befell the ANC in 2024 may befall the GNU too, should the status quo hold and no firm moves made towards policy reforms that would turn the dial on South Africa’s confidence and fixed investment levels, and thereby its economic growth rate.

Polling previously published by this newspaper shows that approval of the GNU has already declined from 58% in 2024 to 48%.

What happens if confidence in the GNU continues to deteriorate?

The answer can be found in The Common Sense’s 2034 Scenarios Special Report, which argued that in a low-growth environment, the country most likely fragments into a de facto federation of enclaves.