(Eagle News)–Over 40% of Filipino families feel they are poor, results of a December Social Weather Stations survey showed.
According to the SWS, the 47% translates to 13.0 million families, slightly lower than the 13.2 million families who rated themselves as poor in September 2023 (48%).
The SWS said to arrive at the estimated numbers of self-rated poor households, the percentage of respondent households rating themselves as poor was applied to the Philippine Statistics Authority medium-population projections for 2023.
The one-point decline in the nationwide self-rated poor figure between September 2023 and December 2023, it said, was due to a decrease in figures in Mindanao, combined with a slight increase in Balance Luzon (or Luzon outside Metro Manila) and steady scores in Metro Manila and the Visayas.
The self-rated poor in Mindanao, in particular, decreased from 71% in September to 61% in December, while the self-rated poor in Balance Luzon went up slightly from 35% to 39%, according to the SWS.
“It hardly moved in Metro Manila from 38% to 37%, and the Visayas from 59% to 58%,” it added.
The SWS said compared to the figure reported in September, the percentage of self-rated food-poor families hardly moved from 34%.
Food borderline families, meanwhile, rose by six points from 35%, while not food-poor families fell by five points from 31%.
The survey was conducted through
face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults nationwide—300 each in Metro Manila, Balance Luzon (or Luzon outside Metro Manila), the Visayas, and Mindanao—from December 8 to 11.
The sampling error margins were pegged at ±2.8% for national percentages, and ±5.7% each for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.