Nearly half of Filipino families still consider themselves as poor, a September 2021 Social Weather Stations survey released on Saturday showed, highlighting the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives of millions.
Forty-five percent of Filipino families, equivalent to 11.4 million families, rated themselves as poor in the Sept. 12 to 16 SWS survey, three points lower than June 2021's 48% or 12 million families.
Another 34% in the September survey described themselves as borderline poor, while 21% considered themselves as not poor. In comparison, 29% of those surveyed in June said they were borderline poor, while 23% felt non-poor.
"The three-point decrease in Self-Rated Poor in the third quarter of 2021 was due to a sharp decline in the Visayas and a slight decrease in Metro Manila, offset by a steady score in Balance Luzon and an increase in Mindanao," SWS said.
Compared to June 2021, self-rated poverty in Visayas fell to 54% from 70%, and to 34% from 43% in Metro Manila. It stood at 38% in Balance Luzon, but rose to 58% from 51% in Mindanao.
Among those who rated themselves as poor, 6.9% or 1.2 million families are "newly poor," or were not poor one to four years ago. Another 4.9% were non-poor five or more years ago, while 32.4% never experienced being non-poor.
Conversely, 14% or 13.8 million of the families who rated themselves as non-poor are "newly non-poor," which means they were poor one to four years ago. Some 11.9% of the non-poor said they were poor five or more years ago, while 28.9% said they never experienced being poor.
A total of 1,200 adults nationwide participated in the survey, 300 each in Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao, with a ±3% sampling error margin for national percentages.
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