SWS: 48 percent of Pinoys feel poor

MANILA, Philippines — Forty-eight percent or about 12 million Filipino families rate themselves as “poor,” according to a recent survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS).

The nationwide poll, conducted from Nov. 21 to 25, showed 48 percent of families considering themselves poor, 36 percent feeling “borderline poor” and 16 percent feeling “not poor.”

The survey used face-to-face interviews of 1,500 adults, 18 years old and above.

This was the first face-to-face interview conducted by the SWS since the COVID-19 pandemic struck in February.

“Self-rated poverty (SRP) could not be implemented in the SWS mobile phone surveys earlier this year since it requires showing the survey respondents a card with the words ‘Mahirap’ and ‘Hindi Mahirap,’ separated by a ‘Line,’ written on it,” the SWS explained.

In December 2019, the last time that the SRP was implemented, there were 54 percent that felt poor, 23 percent that felt borderline poor and 23 percent that felt not poor.

In balance of Luzon, 42 percent rate themselves poor (down from 47 percent), 39 percent borderline poor (up from 24 percent) and 20 percent not poor (down from 29 percent).

In the Visayas, 60 percent consider themselves poor (from 67 percent), 35 percent borderline poor (from 22 percent) and six percent not poor (from 12 percent).

In Mindanao, 54 percent regard themselves as poor (from 64 percent), 43 percent borderline poor (from 25 percent) and three percent not poor (from 11 percent).

In Metro Manila, 45 percent rate themselves as poor (from 41 percent), 14 percent borderline poor (from 17 percent) and 42 percent not poor (from 42 percent).

Metro Manila is the only area where families feeling not poor did not decrease.

Poverty in the area, however, worsened by three points, drawn entirely from a decline in borderline poor, the SWS noted.

The November 2020 survey asked the self-rated poor if they ever experienced being non-poor – either not poor or borderline – in the past.

Of the 48 percent poor families, 8.2 percent or around two million were non-poor one to four years ago, categorized by the SWS as “newly poor.”

The survey showed 5.3 percent or about 1.3 million who were non-poor five or more years ago or “usually poor,” and 34.7 percent or an estimated 8.6 million who never experienced being non-poor or “always poor.”

The SWS Fourth Quarter of 2020 survey also found 31 percent of families rating themselves as food-poor, 47 percent feeling borderline food-poor and 22 percent feeling not food-poor.

In December 2019, there were 35 percent that felt food-poor, 28 percent felt borderline food-poor and 37 percent felt not food-poor.

The poll also showed that the national median Self-Rated Poverty Threshold – the minimum monthly budget poor families say they need for home expenses in order not to consider themselves as poor – was P12,000. This was unchanged from December 2019.