48% of families saw themselves as poor in November 2020 –SWS

Nearly half or 48% of Filipino families said they considered themselves “poor” in a November 2020 survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS), a slight drop from the 54% recorded in December last year.

In face-to-face interviews with 1,500 respondents conducted from November 21 to 25, the SWS found that 36% felt “borderline poor” and only 16% reported feeling “not poor.”

In the same survey last year

Fewer ‘not poor’ families

In Balance Luzon, the number of families that considered themselves “not poor” decreased to 20% in November 2020 from 29% in December 2019. The other 42% said they were poor while 39% were borderline poor.

In the Visayas, only 6% of families surveyed reported feeling “not poor” this year compared to 12% last year. The remaining 60% rated themselves poor and 35% were borderline poor.

In Mindanao, only 3% of families were “not poor” in November 2020, a drop from 11% in December last year. The majority or 54% were poor while 43% were borderline poor.

The SWS said Metro Manila was the only area where the percentage of families feeling “not poor” did not fall and remained at 42%. The remaining 45% said they were poor and 14% felt borderline poor.

The survey also found that 31% of Filipino families were food-poor, 47% were borderline food-poor, and 22% felt non-food-poor in November 2020.

Last year, 35% considered themselves food-poor, 28% said they were borderline food-poor, and 37% were non-food-poor.

Self-rated poverty threshold

The national median Self-Rated Poverty (SRP) Threshold and Gap remained unchanged from last year at P12,000 and P5,000, respectively.

The SWS explained that the SRP Threshold refers to the “minimum monthly budget poor families say they need for home expenses in order not to consider themselves as poor.”

The SRP Gap is the amount of money that families lack in their monthly budgets relative to the SRP Threshold.

“An increase in the proportion of the median Gap relative to the median Threshold means a worsening in families’ budget for home expenses,” the SWS said.

In Metro Manila, the SRP Threshold remained at P15,000 while the SRP Gap increased to P7,000 in November 2020 from P5,000 last year.

In Balance Luzon, the SRP Threshold decreased to P10,000 this year from P13,000 last year, while the Gap was unchanged at P5,000.

In the Visayas, both the SRP Threshold and Gap rose to P15,000 and P7,000 this year from P10,000 and P5,800 in December 2019.

In Mindanao, the SRP Threshold and Gap both remained at P10,000 and P5,000.

Meanwhile, the Self-Rated Food Poverty Threshold (SRFP) Threshold refers to the “minimum monthly food budget the food-poor families say they need in order not to consider their food as poor” while the Gap is what they lack relative to the Threshold.

This year, the national median SRFP Threshold increased to P7,000 from P5,000 in December 2019 and the SRFP Gap was unchanged at P3,000.

8.2% ‘newly poor’

Families that rated themselves poor were asked if they had experienced being non-poor in the past.

Among the poor families, 8.2% were “newly poor” or non-poor one to four years ago, 5.3% were “usually poor” or non-poor five or more years ago, and 34.7% were “always poor” or had never experienced being non-poor.

The World Bank earlier said the coronavirus pandemic would likely add 2.7 million more poor people this year due to economic disruptions brought by quarantine restrictions.

In September, the government said the country would not be able to meet its target of reducing poverty incidence to 14% in 2021.  — DVM, GMA News