Manila Standard

PSA: Fishers, farmers, rural folk still poorest

- Maricel Cruz

FISHERFOLK, farmers, children, and persons living in rural areas remained the poorest sectors in terms of poverty incidence in 2021, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported.

Based on the data released by the PSA on Friday, fisherfolk had the highest poverty incidence in 2021 at 30.6 percent, followed by farmers at 30%, children at 26.4%, and individual­s residing in rural areas at 25.7%.

These sectors also recorded the highest poverty incidences in 2015 and 2018, and “had the highest proportion of individual­s belonging to families with income below the official poverty thresholds compared to the other basic sectors,” the agency said.

This developed as the economy remains the main concern in both the macro and micro issues in the Pahayag Quarter 1 (PQ123) survey conducted by PUBLiCUS Asia, with the results released last 23 March.

In a statement, the polling firm said there was no change in the top issues deemed most important for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to focus on – the economy, inflation, corruption, poverty, and jobs.

Education is in the top 5 of issues among respondent­s aged 18 to 24, government workers, and vocational graduates, PUBLiCUS added.

Interestin­gly, when compared to the survey in the fourth quarter of 2022, “one can see that concern for corruption has increased marginally, from 11% (PQ4-22) to 13% (PQ1-23),” it added.

The Pahayag First Quarter is an independen­t and non-commission­ed survey comprised of 1,500 respondent­s randomly drawn from the market research panel of over 200,000 Filipinos maintained by the Singapore office of PureSpectr­um, a USbased panel marketplac­e with multinatio­nal presence.

The PSA data also showed significan­t increases in poverty incidence in most of the basic sectors, with fisherfolk growing the largest at 4.4% from 2018 to 2021.

Children followed at 2.5%, persons aged 15 and above with disability with 2.5%, and individual­s residing in urban areas with 2.3%.

Farmers were the only ones to have a significan­t reduction in poverty incidence at -1.6% from 2018 to 2021.

The PSA said individual­s residing in rural areas logged the highest number of poor population in 2021 with 13.67 million, followed by children with 10.46 million, and women with 9.99 million.

Persons aged 15 and above with disability recorded the least number of poor population in 2021 with 271,000, followed by fisherfolk with 348,000, and senior citizens with 1.2 million, it added.

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