Poverty incidence drops to 21%

MANILA, Philippines — The number of Filipinos living below the poverty line was reduced in the first semester of 2018 despite faster growth in inflation and rising poverty thresholds, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported yesterday.

The PSA’s parent agency, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), said this was largely because of improvements in the quality of employment in the past three years since the last poverty survey in 2015, as well as the expansion in government social services.

The nationwide poverty incidence fell to 21 percent in the first half of 2018 compared to 27.6 percent in the first half of 2015.

Deputy National Statistician Josie Perez said this means there are 23.1 million Filipinos who do not have incomes that meet the poverty threshold during this period, or the minimum amount needed to meet the basic food and non-food requirements of a family of five.

Considering the 16.1 percent poverty incidence among Filipino families in the first semester of 2018, this means around four million families were living below the poverty line. But this was still lower compared with the 22.2 percent poverty incidence among Filipino families in the first semester of 2015, equivalent to five million families.

In the first semester of 2018, a family of this size needed no less than P7,337 a month to meet basic food needs. This is based on food items that can help them meet the recommended 2,100 calories per day. Compared with the first semester of 2015, only P6,600 was needed monthly.

A family of five needs no less than P10,481 monthly on the average. Compared with the poverty threshold in the first half of 2015, only P9,453 was needed.

Based on these thresholds, 6.2 percent of Filipino families have monthly incomes that fall below the food threshold. This compares with the subsistence factor of 9.9 percent for families in the first semester of 2015.

Among individuals, 8.5 percent of the population do not have incomes to cover even the basic food requirements. But this was lower than 13 percent in 2015.

Regions with the lowest poverty incidence as of the first semester of 2018 continued to be the National Capital Region (NCR), Region 4A and Region 3.

Regions that consistently posted the highest poverty incidence were Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Regions 12 and 13.

Despite having the lowest poverty incidence, however, NCR saw a higher poverty incidence of 4.9 percent in the first semester of 2018 from 4.6 in the same period in 2015 because of higher poverty thresholds brought about by higher food prices. Most regions also reported lower poverty incidences during this period.

“One explanation is (NCR) felt the increase in food prices more strongly, especially in rice,” said NEDA Undersecretary Adoracion Navarro.

Navarro said the overall easing of poverty incidence could be traced to the growth in employment in the manufacturing and construction sectors as well as employment shifts to the industry and service sectors from agriculture.

Even as inflation rose to 8.1 percent between 2015 to 2018 from 7.8 percent in 2012 to 2015, the growth of average income nationwide accelerated to 21.2 percent from 15.3 percent.

The expansion of government social services such as the conditional cash transfer programs to include a P600 rice subsidy grant and P1,000 pension increase from the Social Security System released in 2017 added to household incomes, Navarro said.

“These indicate that the pace, quality and consistency of economic growth over the past seven years continue to benefit the poor,” Navarro added.

Moving forward, she said there is a need to take advantage of this momentum by pursuing key reforms such as scaling up the implementation of social programs at the local government level, peace-building efforts, full implementation of the Reproductive Health Law and facilitating new investments that can create more jobs. – With Alexis Romero, Paolo Romero, Cecille Suerte Felipe