SWS: 1 in 3 families move out of poverty
The survey, conducted from Dec. 8 to 16 with the results released on Friday, showed that 31 percent of respondents no longer identify themselves as poor. File
MANILA, Philippines — One in every three Filipino families has escaped poverty in recent years, according to a recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey.
The survey, conducted from Dec. 8 to 16 with the results released on Friday, showed that 31 percent of respondents no longer identify themselves as poor.
Based on the survey results, 14.1 percent said they have escaped poverty in the last four years (newly non-poor), while another 16.8 percent said they used to be poor five or more years ago (usually non-poor).
This is higher than the 11.3 percent and 15.3 percent who identified their families as “newly non-poor” and “usually non-poor,” respectively, in a similar survey conducted in September.
Meanwhile, another 25.1 percent said they never experienced poverty, roughly similar from the 25.2 percent who said the same thing in the September survey.
Among those who identified their family as poor, some 12 percent – or one in every eight – said they have fallen into poverty in recent years.
Six percent of the respondents fell into poverty in the past four years (newly poor), while another 6.4 percent said their families were not poor five or more years ago (usually poor).
This is almost steady from the 6.11 percent and 5.3 percent who said that they are newly poor and usually poor, respectively, in Sept.
The remaining 31.1 percent of the respondents said their families have always been poor, lower than the 35.8 percent who said they were always poor in September.
SWS earlier said that the self-rated poverty in the country slightly decreased to 44 percent or 10 million Filipino families in the last quarter of 2017.
It was three points below the 47 percent or 10.9 million Filipino families who considered their families as poor in September.
Meanwhile, the number of Filipinos who said that their families are “food-poor” – or those who rated themselves as poor based on the food that they eat – remained at 32 percent.
The same survey also showed that the self-rated poverty threshold, or the monthly amount needed by a family for them to not consider themselves as poor, increased to P15,000.
This is the first time that the threshold, which has been at P10,000 since 2013, increased to such amount.
The survey had 1,200 respondents and an error margin of +/- three percent for the national percentages.
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