KUALA LUMPUR, May 8 -- Poverty incidence remains prevalent in the country's capital even as income and employment improved for many of its poorest households in the post-Covid 19 era, Unicef said in its latest and final report of a years-long study that tracked the lives of hundreds of public housing dwellers.

The number of households living both under the relative and absolute poverty line only marginally decreased despite a strong economic rebound in 2022 and 2023, staying at 41 per cent as of October 2023 or just 4 per cent lower than it was in March 2021, at the height of the new coronavirus pandemic that forced the world to go into cycles of lockdowns.

The poverty rate was still highest among households headed by persons with disab...