Nearly half, or 49 percent, of Filipino families—approximately 13.7 million—rated themselves as poor in the second quarter of the year, according to a Social Weather Stations (SWS) poll released on Friday. The survey, conducted from June 25-29 with 1,200 adult respondents, also revealed that 10 percent of families considered themselves on the borderline between poor and not poor, while 41 percent rated themselves as not poor.
The 41 percent of families identifying as non-poor is just one percentage point below the “record-high” 42 percent recorded in the April 23-28 survey. Conversely, the 49 percent who considered themselves poor in June was also one percentage point lower than the 50 percent reported in the previous poll, where 14.1 million families identified as poor.
The SWS noted that the slight decrease in nationwide self-rated poverty was attributed to declines in the Visayas and Balance Luzon, offset by increases in Mindanao and Metro Manila. The survey has a sampling error margin of ±3 percent.
Self-rated poverty was highest in Mindanao at 69 percent, followed by the Visayas at 60 percent, Balance Luzon at 38 percent, and Metro Manila at 36 percent. Notably, self-rated poverty fell by 7 percentage points in the Visayas and 5 points in Balance Luzon, while it rose by 8 points in Mindanao and 3 points in Metro Manila.
The survey also indicated that of the families classified as poor, 7.8 percent—2.2 million—were considered “newly poor,” having been non-poor one to four years ago. Additionally, 6.4 percent or 1.8 million were “usually poor,” having been non-poor five or more years ago, while 34.8 percent or 9.8 million have never experienced being non-poor (“always poor”).
Among non-poor families, 11.1 percent or 3.1 million were classified as “newly non-poor,” having been poor one to four years ago. Furthermore, 23 percent or 6.4 million of non-poor families were poor five or more years ago (“usually non-poor”), and 16.9 percent or 4.7 million have never experienced poverty (“always non-poor”).
The SWS has measured self-rated poverty 151 times since April 1983, with the initial survey showing 55 percent of families identifying as poor. The highest recorded rate was 74 percent in July 1985, while the lowest was 38 percent in March 2019.
In his State of the Nation Address on July 28, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. acknowledged improvements in inflation and other economic indicators but emphasized that these gains are meaningless if many Filipinos continue to struggle. He pledged to work towards improving the lives of Filipinos during the remaining years of his presidency.