MANILA, Philippines — The proportion of Filipino families that consider themselves poor fell to a record low in the first quarter, a new Social Weather Stations survey released Tuesday found.
Results of a March 28 to 31 poll of 1,440 adults showed an estimated 9.5 million families qualified themselves as poor, yielding a self-rated poverty score of 38%.
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The latest reading was 12 points below the 50% recorded in the preceding quarter, and was the lowest since the 42% chalked up in September 2016 and March 2018.
“The new record-low Self-Rated Poverty score is a continuing recovery from the 10-point rise within the first three quarters of 2018,” SWS said.
“The proportion of Self-Rated Poor families rose from 42% in March 2018, to 48% in June 2018, and 52% in September 2018. It subsided by 2 points to 50% in December and fell to 38% in March 2019,” it added.
According to SWS, 15% of respondents recently made it out of poverty while a record-high 20% used to be poor five or more years ago.
Meanwhile, the survey also found a new record-low 27% (estimated 6.8 million) of families rating their food as “poor”, termed by SWS as “Food-Poor.”
“This is seven points below the 34% (est. 7.9 million) in December 2018, and 2 points below the previous record-low of 29%,” SWS said. — Ian Nicolas Cigaral