The number of poor Filipinos decreased in 2023 compared to 2021 due to higher mean per capita, which grew at a faster pace than the annual per capita poverty threshold, the Philippine Statistics Authority said on Monday.
Preliminary results from the 2023 Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) indicate that there were 17.54 million poor Filipinos in 2023, resulting in a poverty incidence of 15.5
This figure is lower than the 19.99 million poor Filipinos in 2021, when the poverty rate was 18.1%, and the 17.67 million in 2018, when the rate was 16.7 percent.
The PSA attributed the reduction in poverty to a 17.9 percent increase in mean per capita income, which rose to P85,290, outpacing the 15.3 percent increase in the poverty threshold, which reached P33,296.
The most significant increase in mean per capita income was observed in the first decile class, which saw a 25.3 percent rise to P24,954. This was followed by the second decile class, with a 22.9 percent increase to P36,716, and the third decile class, which grew by 22.2 percent to P45,596.
“The observed decline in poverty incidence from 2021 can be explained by the changes in the poverty threshold and income data from 2021 to 2023,” the PSA said in an accompanying statement.
The same data from FIES showed that poverty incidence among Filipino households decreased to 10.9 percent, representing three million poor families. This is a significant reduction from the 13.2 percent recorded in 2022.
The FIES data, collected in July 2023, was based on income information from January to June 2023. The subsequent survey in January 2024 utilized income data from July to December 2023. (TCSP)
