Put people at the centre. Keep the evidence honest.

FIELD NOTE 04WHO IS AFFECTED

04 · Residents and distribution

Who is affected—and what the data can actually show.

Demographics help describe the metro; they do not, by themselves, prove who owns wealth or experiences worse service. The evidence here separates what is measured from what remains unknown.

Different households face different pressure points

The figures below describe Nelson Mandela Bay at metro level. They do not tell us which income band or ward experienced a particular outage, nor prove that a service failure caused a household’s financial position. The lenses overlap: one person can be a young job-seeker, informal trader, caregiver and disabled resident at once. Use them to make awareness more reachable, not to label neighbours.

26.4%

households reported inadequate or severely inadequate food access

2025 · Stats SA GHS

36.5%

of individuals received a social grant

2025 · Stats SA GHS

33.1%

official unemployment rate among the 15–64 labour force

Q2 2026 · not a youth-specific rate · Stats SA QLFS

18.6%

broad disability prevalence among people aged 5+

Census 2022 · cross-cutting measure · Stats SA profile

Household budgets · income-constrained

Low and grant-supported incomes

Pressure point. Food access is a serious metro-wide concern. The grant figure and food-access figure are separate estimates; they do not show which grant recipients face food insecurity. When water, electricity or transport fails, paying for substitutes can take money from essentials. That is a plausible pressure pathway, not a measured household cost in these surveys.

Raise awareness. Put short, dated updates on community radio, clinic and school noticeboards, community halls and trusted local-language WhatsApp groups. Keep the post low-data; include the affected area, outage start, official reference number and next update time.

The available metro data do not provide a dependable count of all low-income households by ward.

Work and opportunity · job-seekers

Young adults and people looking for work

Pressure point. The 33.1% figure is the official unemployment rate for the whole 15–64 labour force in Q2 2026. It is not the youth rate. Transport costs, unreliable services and unclear public job or training notices can make daily work-seeking harder; the metro statistic does not prove that municipal failures caused unemployment.

Raise awareness. Use short captioned videos and share cards through TVET and university networks, youth organisations, sports clubs, libraries and WhatsApp. Pair a verified service issue with a specific public question, and link any job, internship or training claim to the original notice.

Do not repost an old youth-unemployment number as if it were the latest Nelson Mandela Bay estimate.

Livelihoods · informal and casual work

Traders, casual workers and small businesses

Pressure point. Water, electricity, sanitation or road disruptions may stop trading, spoil stock or delay a shift. The sources reviewed do not quantify lost sales or missed wages for local traders, so the scale should be collected rather than guessed.

Raise awareness. Work through market committees, trader groups, taxi associations, unions and business forums. Ask affected businesses to record the date, duration, service affected and lost operating hours (optional, anonymised), then publish a weekly pattern with official case numbers.

Use aggregated evidence; do not post a worker’s identity, customer details or till slips without consent.

Housing and access · renters and underserved areas

Informal-settlement residents, backyard households and tenants

Pressure point. Census 2022 recorded 92.0% of households in formal dwellings; the remaining share is not a count of informal settlements alone. Stats SA’s 2025 survey estimated 5.2% of metro households in informal dwellings. Neither statistic maps service reliability by settlement, tenure or ward. Tenants and backyard households may also be missed by a simple dwelling label.

Raise awareness. Use ward noticeboards, community radio, resident committees and neighbourhood groups. Build a public outage map from approximate blocks or streets, with dates and repair status; never publish a household’s exact location, contact details or a vulnerable person’s routine.

Formal housing status does not guarantee reliable service, secure tenure or equal response times.

Care work · households and carers

Working households, women-headed homes and caregivers

Pressure point. Census 2022 found 49.2% of households were female-headed and the average household size was 3.9. These are descriptions, not measures of poverty or service quality. A water or transport interruption can add time to cooking, cleaning, school runs and care, especially for people already balancing paid and unpaid work; local survey data do not quantify that extra time.

Raise awareness. Share notices through schools, clinics, early-childhood centres and caregiver networks. Offer evening or weekend forums, short voice notes and printed summaries so that participation does not depend on spare data, office hours or long meetings.

Ask residents what time and format work for them; do not assume one woman or household speaks for a whole area.

Household finances · wage earners and renters

Middle-income and formally employed households

Pressure point. The 2023 median annual household income for the metro was R106,354, a survey benchmark rather than a boundary between social classes. Wage earners can still face costs from billing errors, commuting delays, outages and missed work. The survey does not show who can afford backup water, power or transport.

Raise awareness. Use workplace channels, tenant and residents’ associations, libraries, faith groups and ratepayer forums. Turn individual complaints into a documented pattern: service, date, ward, reference number, promised response and actual outcome.

Keep landlords, tenants, homeowners and ratepayers visible as distinct groups with different responsibilities.

Resources and influence · higher-income residents and employers

Property owners, professionals and larger employers

Pressure point. Nelson Mandela Bay does not have a reliable public local top-percentile or household net-worth series. Some residents and employers may have more ways to buffer disruption; the extent is not measured here. Private buffers can also make repeated failures less visible in public debate.

Raise awareness. Ask business associations and employers to publish service interruptions, response times and verified costs in aggregate. Share meeting space, print runs or data-free access to civic information, and make sure affected residents set the questions and receive equal speaking time.

Avoid assigning wealth or service privilege to a suburb, race or occupation without direct evidence.

Cross-cutting access · disability, age and health

Disabled residents, older people and people with care needs

Pressure point. The broad Census definition recorded disability prevalence of 18.6% among residents aged five and older in 2022. This is not an income category. Water, electricity, accessible transport and reliable alerts can be especially important where a person depends on mobility equipment, refrigerated medicine or assistance; needs vary from person to person.

Raise awareness. Partner with disability organisations, clinics and senior groups. Provide plain-language text, captions, audio, large print, accessible venues and a phone or in-person route alongside social media. Ask about access requirements; do not collect diagnoses or medical details.

Design every public alert for people who may have low vision, hearing loss, limited mobility or limited data.

Turn attention into a result: record what happened, where and when; keep the municipal reference number; ask for one specific action and a date; share the same update through digital and offline channels; then report whether the issue was acknowledged, fixed and kept fixed. Track response and repeat faults, not likes. Use the social-media guide to share safely and the escalation directory to route unresolved cases.

Verify

Check the date, place, official notice and service reference before amplifying a claim.

Make it reachable

Use clear language, captions or audio, low-data formats and a noticeboard or radio route.

Ask for one action

Name the responsible office, the fix or information needed and a reasonable reply date.

Close the loop

Post the outcome, evidence and any repeat failure; remove personal details from public copies.