Egypt Plans Stimulus to Revive ‘Sudden Stop’ Economy

Ashraf Abdel-Wanis had plenty of reasons to join tens of thousands of fellow Egyptians in their successful push to oust President Hosni Mubarak. At 39, he last worked five years ago in a sugar factory and now gets by mainly on his wife’s $50 monthly salary and his mother’s pension.

“The Egyptian family’s nutrition consists of beans, lentils and beans,” he said in an interview in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the plaza at the heart of almost three weeks of protests. “If they’re lucky, they cook vegetables once a week.”