(Eagle News)—-Poverty incidence among Filipino families in the first semester of 2018 went down, the Philippine Statistics Authority said.
According to the PSA, the 16.1 percent of families whose family income is below the poverty line was lower than the 22.2 percent in the same period in 2015.
The PSA said the same can be said of poverty incidence among Filipino individuals in the first semester of 2018, which was at 21.0 percent.
According to the PSA, this was lower than the 27.6 percent recorded in 2015 in the same period.
Subsistence incidence, or the proportion of Filipino families whose incomes fall below the food threshold, among Filipino families was also lower compared to the 9.9 percent recorded in 2015.
According to the PSA, subsistence incidence registered at 6.2 percent in the first semester of 2018.
“In the first semester of 2018, a family of five needed no less than PhP 7,337, on average, to meet the family’s basic food needs for a month. This amount is the food threshold,” the PSA said.
The PSA said no less than PhP 10,481, on average, was needed to meet both basic food and non-food needs of a family of five in a month.
These are 10.9 percent higher than the food and poverty thresholds from the first semester of 2015, the PSA said.
