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The mass exodus of migrant workers from several cities during the nationwide lockdown in the early phase of the pandemic brought the social and economic vulnerability ofmigrant workers to the centre stage of public discussion. However, as the 'crises oflivelihood faced by migrant workers started to get some attention in the backdrop of an unprecedented pandemic, there is a danger of treating it as an isolated and transient phenomenon. The long-term factors that created such a widespread livelihoods vulnerability, however, need particular attention, particularly when designing policy alternatives to address the problem. The bottom line is that there is a large section of migrant workers who work and live under such a condition that, in the face of the lockdown, they could not simply survive such a sudden disruption of earnings. Rapid surveys indicate that a section ofthem did not have enough food to survive for the next few days. The vulnerability and precarious conditions of this section of the migrant workers were exposed by the pandemic. Its durability, however, defines the normal conditions of their existence. In this context, this paper argues that a political economy approach that takes into account the broader, structural contexts of migration is better suited to explain the reasons behind the persistent vulnerability of a section of migrant workers. In particular, the paper attempts to link the literature on the political economy of agrarian change with the vulnerability of circular migrants. Migrants' vulnerabilities can be examined at three levels-at the origin, during the migration process, and at destinations. Based on multiple rounds of field surveys on migration and agrarian change in one of the 'migration prone' regions in interior Odisha, as well as a survey of circular migrant workers in Delhi, the paper examines the factors that create and perpetuate vulnerabilities of diverse kinds among the migrant workers. At a more general level, the paper examines the question of vulnerable migrant workers in relation to the nature of contemporary, global capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]