PSA reviews poverty, food thresholds

MANILA, Philippines —  The methodology for coming up with thresholds used by the government to determine poverty will be adjusted in 2025, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said, with the current food threshold deemed insufficient.

As of 2023, the poverty threshold or the minimum income required to meet the basic food and non-food needs of a family of five was pegged at P13,873 per month.

Meanwhile, the food threshold or the minimum income needed by a family of five to meet basic food needs per month was at P9,581 or about P64 per person per day.

The latest poverty data
 released last month showed the poverty incidence among the population was at 15.5 percent last year, lower than the 18.1 percent poverty incidence in 2021.

National Statistician Dennis Mapa said he agrees “that the food threshold might be insufficient.”

He added that the PSA is now preparing to make adjustments to the menu and methodology for thresholds being used for the country’s poverty estimates in 2025.

The food threshold is based on a sample menu or food bundle for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks that satisfy energy and nutrient requirements.

Mapa said the sample national food bundle for breakfast is composed of scrambled egg, coffee with milk and boiled rice or rice-corn mix for breakfast, while lunch is composed of boiled monggo with malunggay and dried dilis, banana and boiled rice or corn mix.

For dinner, the menu is composed of fried fish or boiled pork, vegetable fish and boiled rice or rice-corn mix, while snacks cover bread or boiled rootcrop.

For the adjustments, Mapa said the PSA is proposing changes in the menu and cost and ratio of food and non-food expenses.

He said there will also be adjustments to the inflation base year from the current 2018 to 2023 to take into account changes in families’ consumption patterns.

“Of course if income is increasing, the component allotted to food is becoming smaller, while those for others are becoming bigger. We need to capture that so we’re really updating consumption components,” he said.

PSA data released yesterday showed the average annual income of Filipino families in 2023 was estimated at P353,230, up 15 percent from the P307,190 average family income in 2021.

Meanwhile, Filipino families spent an average of P258,050 in 2023, 12.8 percent higher than P228,800 in 2021.

Mapa attributed the increase in income to improvement in employment and wages in 2023 as the economy bounced back from the pandemic in 2021. – Cecille Suerte Felipe