War at 1 year: Pain, resilience in global economy

An Egyptian widow is struggling to afford meat and eggs for her five children. An exasperated German laundry owner watches as his energy bill jumps fivefold. Nigerian bakeries have shut their doors, unable to afford the exorbitant price of flour.

One year after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, and caused widespread suffering, the global economy is still enduring the consequences — crunched supplies of grain, fertilizer and energy along with more inflation and economic uncertainty in a world that was already contending with too much of both.

As dismal as the war’s impact has been, there’s one consolation: It could have been worse. Companies and countries in the developed world have proved surprisingly resilient, so far avoiding the worst-case scenario of painful recession.

But in emerging economies, the pain has been more intense.

In Egypt, where nearly a third of the population lives in poverty, Halima Rabie has struggled for years to feed her five school-age children. Now, the 47-yearold widow has cut back on even the most basic groceries as prices keep rising.

“It’s become unbearable,” Rabie said, heading to her job as a cleaner at a staterun hospital in Cairo’s twin city of Giza. “Meat and eggs have become a luxury.”

In the United States and other wealthy countries, a painful surge in consumer prices, fueled in part by the war’s effect on oil prices, has steadily eased. It’s buoyed hopes that U.S. Federal Reserve inflation fighters will relent on interest rate increases that have threatened to tip the world’s biggest economy into recession and sent other currencies tumbling against the dollar.

China also dropped draconian zero-COVID lockdowns late last year that hobbled growth in the second-largest economy.

Some good fortune has helped, too: A warmer-thanusual winter has helped lower natural gas prices and limit the damage from an energy crisis after Russia largely cut off gas to Europe.