THE Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) released on Thursday its revised poverty estimates which indicated that the country’s poverty rate in 2015 was higher at 23.5 percent.
The PSA pegged the poverty rate at 21.6 percent in October 2016. The new figure translates to 23.5 million Filipinos who lived below the poverty threshold estimated at P9,452 monthly on average, for a family of five in 2015.
“Back estimation of the full-year 2015 poverty statistics was made due to the following—rebasing of the Consumer Price Index [CPI] market basket prices from 2006 to 2012, and adoption of the 2015 Census of Population [PopCen] results for the weights in the FIES [Family Income and Expenditure Survey],” the PSA said.
In October 2016, PSA estimated that there were only 21.9 million poor Filipinos who lived below the poverty threshold estimated at P9,064 a month on average, for a family of five in 2015.
The PSA said these changes were incorporated in the 2015 full-year poverty estimates for comparability with the full year 2018 official poverty statistics, which will be released Friday.
Food expenses
PSA data also showed that despite the increase in the incomes of Filipinos in 2018, food continued to account for a big chunk of the expenses of households.
Data showed that on a per-capita income basis using current prices, total expenditures of Filipinos reached P5.921 trillion in 2018, a 19.42-percent increase from P4.958 trillion in 2015.
The bottom 30 percent of Filipinos spent P792 billion, while the upper 70 percent spent P5.128 trillion.
The expenses of the bottom 30 percent increased 7.03 percent from P740 billion, while expenses of the upper 70 percent grew 21.57 percent from P4.218 trillion in 2015.
Food expenses accounted for 42.6 percent of the total expenses of all households in 2018, 0.8 percentage points higher than the 41.8 percent recorded in 2015.
Spending for food products accounted for 58.2 percent of the expenses of the poorest Filipinos, while those who earned more set aside 39.5 percent of their income for food items in 2018.
In 2018, the share of food expenses for the bottom 30 percent contracted while that of the upper 70 percent went up.
PSA data showed in 2015, food accounted for 59.6 percent of poor households’ expenses while in rich households, the share was 38.7 percent.
Family income
Last year, PSA data showed that Filipino families earned P313,000 on average while their expenses averaged P239,000. Their average annual savings amount to P74,000, according to PSA data.
Adjusting for inflation in 2015 to 2018, using 2012 prices, the average annual family income in 2018 is valued at P267,000, while the average annual family expenditure for the same year is valued at P203,000.
“The average family income ranged from P113,000 for the first income decile [lowest 10-percent income group] to P867,000 for the tenth decile [highest 10-percent income group]. The average annual income of families in the tenth decile was about eight times of those in the first decile, while nine times of those in the first decile in 2015,” the PSA said.
“The national per-capita income decile is obtained by ranking the per-capita family income of all sample families from lowest to highest, and was compiled into 10 groups. The first tenth, meaning those with the lowest income, is called the first decile, the second tenth, second decile, and so on,” it added.
Across regions, families in the National Capital Region had the highest average annual family income at P460,000 in 2018 while those in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) had the lowest average annual income at P161,000.
The Gini coefficient of the income of families at the national level was estimated at 0.4267 in 2018. Across regions, the coefficient ranged from 0.2819 to 0.4457.
The Gini coefficient is a measure of income inequality within the population which ranges from 0 to 1, with 0 indicating perfect income equality among families, and 1 indicating absolute income inequality.
Image credits: AP/Aaron Favila