|
AN
indication of the worsening poverty in the country,
despite official data showing fewer Filipinos living
below the poverty line, is this alarming information:
the Filipino middle-income class has continued to
dwindle through the years. And it seems that many of
those in this category have avoided falling into the
cracks to the low-income levels only by getting
better-paying jobs abroad.
These
are among the interesting information gleaned from a
paper presented during the recent 10th National
Convention on Statistics.
The
number of middle-income families increased from 1997 to
2000 but diminished from 2000 to 2003, said the paper
entitled, “Trends and Characteristics of the
Middle-Income Class in the Philippines: Is It Expanding
or Shrinking?”
The
paper—authored by Romulo Virola, Mildred Addawe and Ma.
Ivy Querubin—also disclosed that the percentage share of
both the middle- and high-income classes shrank between
1997 and 2000 as well as between 2000 and 2003,
resulting in an expanding low-income class in the
Philippine society.
As of
2003 less than
1 in
100 families belongs to the high-income class; about 20
in the middle-income class; and 80 under the low-income
class, said the paper. It pointed out that in a span of
six years from 1997 to 2003, close to 4 families for
every 100 middle-income families migrated to the
low-income category.
The
middle-income class is defined as those families with
present annual income ranging from P251,283 to
P2,045,280. They “own refrigerators, radios and house
and lot with strong [roof],” the paper showed.
The NSCB
was prompted to do the research because not much has
been studied about the middle-income class, who,
according to the agency, can actually provide the
necessary resources to bolster economic growth.
“Societies which are relatively homogenously middle
class have more income and growth because they have more
capital and infrastructure accumulation, they have
better economic policies , more democracy, less
political instability, more modern sectoral structure
and more urbanization,” the paper said.
In the
past few years, officials have changed the formulation
for deriving the percentage of people living below the
poverty threshold. While it has had the net effect of
reducing the percentage of population living below this
line, critics have assailed its “misleading” effect on
policy planners. For instance, owing to the adjustments
on poverty threshold, it now stands at an unrealistic
P40.75 per person—meaning, anyone who has this to cover
both food and nonfood requirements stands above the
poverty level. |
