FIFTY-ONE percent of Filipino families in the country rated themselves as poor while 31 percent said their families are “borderline poor,” the 2022 fourth quarter survey of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) held from December 10 to 14 showed.
The survey, which involved 1,200 adult respondents nationwide with a sampling margin of error of ±2.5 percent, showed that 51 percent or an estimated 12.9 million families (up from 49 percent or 12.6 million in October 2021) rated themselves as “poor.”
The survey also showed that 31 percent (up from 29 percent) said they are “borderline poor” while 19 percent (down from 21 percent) rated their families as “not poor.”
The two-point rise in the nationwide Self-Rated Poor was attributed to an increase in Luzon with 49 percent (from 36 percent), combined with decreases in Metro Manila with 32 percent (from 44 percent), the Visayas with 58 percent (from 68 percent), and Mindanao with 59 percent (from 64 percent).
SWS also found that 34 percent of families or 8.7 million families rated themselves as “food-poor,” unchanged from October 2022, while 38 percent felt they were “borderline food poor” (unchanged) and 28 percent are “not food-poor” (unchanged).
Self-Rated Food-Poor in Metro Manila went down to 29 percent from 33 percent and the Visayas to 38 percent (from 44 percent) and Mindanao to 45 percent (from 50 percent).
SWS also found that the national median Self-Rated Poverty Threshold (SRP Threshold) stayed at P15,000 in Metro Manila, Luzon and the Visayas while it went down to P15,000 from P20,000 in Metro Manila and to P10,000 from P15,000 in Mindanao.
SWS said the national median Self-Rated Food Poverty Threshold (SRFP Threshold) also fell from P8,000 in October 2022 to P7,000 in December 2022.
