High food prices and the lingering effects of Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) caused the country’s poverty incidence to go up in the first six months of 2014, according to the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).
The Annual Poverty Indicators Survey (Apis), which was released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Friday, showed that poverty incidence among Filipinos in January to June 2014 rose to 25.8 percent, from 24.6 percent posted in the first semester of 2013.
PSA data also showed that subsistence incidence, or the proportion of Filipinos who live in extreme poverty, remained at 10.5 percent.
Among Filipino families, the PSA said poverty incidence rose to 20 percent in January to June 2014, from 18.8 percent in the same period in 2013.
“The subsistence incidence among Filipino families, or the proportion of Filipino families in extreme poverty, was estimated at 7.6 percent during the first semester of 2014. In the same period in 2013, the proportion of families in extreme poverty was recorded at 7.5 percent,” the PSA said.
While per-capita income grew on the back of a 6-percent hike in gross domestic product (GDP) growth in
the first half of 2014, government data showed it was not enough to keep pace with the rise in food prices and the cost of other basic necessities.
“During the first semester of 2014, a family of five needed at least P6,125 on the average every month to meet the family’s basic food needs and at least P8,778 on the average every month to meet both basic food and nonfood needs,” the PSA said.
The PSA said these figures indicate increases of about 9.5 percent in food threshold and 9.4 percent in poverty threshold. Per-capita income, however, rose by only 6.4 percent in the first semester of 2014.
Among the bottom 30 percent of income-earners, the Neda said per- capita income increased by about 7.3 percent in the same period in the previous year. The fastest growth rate was observed among those in the fifth income decile, at 8.5 percent.
In the first semester of 2014, the PSA said incomes of poor families were short by 27 percent of the poverty threshold. This means that on the average, an additional monthly income of P2,370 is needed by a poor family with five members in order to move out of poverty in the first semester of 2014.
Higher food prices caused the country’s inflation rate to hover near the higher end of the inflation target in the first half of 2014. The consumer price index for food went up to 6.5 percent and 2.7 percent for the nonfood items in the same period.
Due to high inflation, government data showed that 10 out of the 17 regions experienced double-digit increases in
poverty thresholds.
The highest was observed in Region 8 with 14.2 percent, possibly due to the lingering effects of Supertyphoon Yolanda. This was followed by the National Capital Region with 13.5 percent. The PSA said the Apis did not include sample households from Batanes and Leyte.
To be comparable, the PSA did not include the poverty statistics of the two provinces in the 2013 poverty estimates.