Nearly half of Filipino families rated themselves poor — SWS April to May 2021 survey

The latest survey of the Social Weather Stations (SWS), released on July 9, revealed that almost half of Filipino families considered themselves poor.

On its survey, conducted from April 28 to May 2, 2021, the SWS showed that 49 percent of Filipino families rated themselves poor, while only 17 percent of them said the opposite.

Thirty-three percent of Filipino families, meanwhile, said they are “borderline poor” or those who placed themselves “on the borderline dividing two categories.”

“This is similar to the findings in November 2020 when only 16% felt Not Poor, 48% felt Poor, and 36% felt Borderline Poor,” the SWS noted.

Among the self-rated poor, 9.4 percent are “newly poor” or those who rated themselves as non-poor a year to four years ago. The SWS also found that 4.9 percent are “usually poor” or those who were non-poor five or more years ago, while 34.9 percent are “always poor” or those who never experienced being non-poor.

The survey showed that among the estimated 12.4 million poor families in May 2021, 2.4 million are newly poor, 1.2 million are usually poor, and 8.8 million are always poor.

On the other hand, 15.8 percent of Filipino families considered themselves as “newly non-poor,” 9.4 percent are “usually non-poor,” and 24.7 percent are “always non-poor.”

An estimated 12.8 million families are non-poor in May 2021, of which 4.0 percent are newly non-poor, 2.4 million are usually non-poor, and 6.2 million are always non-poor.

The latest survey also reported that 32 percent of families rated themselves as “food-poor,” 23 percent said they are “not food-poor,” and 45 percent said they are “borderline food-poor.”

This latest figure, according to the SWS, is similar to the findings in November 2020, where it was recorded that 31 percent felt they were food-poor, 22 percent said they were not food-poor, and 47 percent rated themselves as borderline food-poor.

The SWS said that the national self-rated poverty threshold (SRP Threshold) increased to P13,000 in May 2021 from the P12,000 in November 2020, while the median self-rated poverty gap (SRP Gap) remained at P5,000.

“In the past, the median SRP Gap has generally been half of the median SRP Threshold. This means that average poor families lack about half of what they need to not consider themselves as poor,” it explained.

“An increase in the proportion of the median SRP Gap relative to the median SRP Threshold means a worsening in families’ budget for home expenses,” it added.

The national median self-rated food poverty threshold (SRFP Threshold) and the national median self-rated food poverty gap (SRFP Gap) stayed at P7,000 and P3,000, respectively.

The survey — which has sampling error margins of ±3 percent for national percentages and ±6 percent for Balance Luzon, Metro Manila, the Visayas, and Mindanao — was conducted using face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults.