Philippine poverty incidence hits 18.1% in 2021, higher than target range

The Philippines failed to meet its poverty incidence target in 2021 as there were more Filipinos who had income less than needed to afford basic needs, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported Monday.

Preliminary data released by the PSA indicated that the Philippine poverty incidence was at 18.1% in 2021, up from 16.7% in 2018 and higher than the target range of 15.5% to 17.5%.

This translates to 19.99 million poor Filipinos, up from 17.67 million recorded in 2018.

Poverty incidence is defined by the PSA as the proportion of Filipinos whose per capita income cannot sufficiently meet the individual basic food and non-food needs.

The subsistence incidence — the proportion of Filipinos whose income is not enough to meet even just the basic food needs — also increased to 5.9% in 2021 from 5.2% in 2018.

This is equivalent to 6.55 million Filipinos below the poverty line, up from 5.54 million in 2018.

The latest figures indicate that among families, around 3.50 million or 13.2% were considered poor in the past year, as a family of five would need at least P8,379 per month to meet the basic requirements.

The subsistence incidence among families was recorded at 3.9%, equivalent to 1.04 million poor families below the food poverty line. This is higher than the 3.4% recorded in 2018.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan attributed the increase to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy and employment during the period.

In a press conference, Balisacan said the current administration aims to bring down the poverty incidence rate down to 9% by the end of its term, as it targets a 5 percentage point reduction by the midterm, and another 4 percentage points after.

The government, however, continues to face challenges such as inflation which has continued to record an uptrend, and has accelerated in the past five months to hit a fresh three-year high of 6.4% in July.

“The previous administration did not anticipate the kind of inflation we have today, but with the reorientation of our targeting system that we are ramping up, our digitalization so that we can target our resources to the most deserving ones, achieving more successes… I think we are on track,” Balisacan said. —KBK, GMA News