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Poverty drops to lowest level, personal optimism returns, says SWS survey |
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20 JULY 2003 |
| Poverty drops to lowest level, personal optimism returns, says SWS survey |
The Social Weather Stations said today its June 2003 economic indicators show improvements across the board, with poverty dropping to its lowest level in 16 years, hunger maintaining the same low level as last March, and personal optimism regaining its traditional dominance over pessimism. The proportion of families rating themselves as mahirap or poor was only 53% in the June survey, or a very significant drop from 59% in March 2003, 61% in November 2002, and 66% in both September 2002 and May 2002, the SWS said in its report posted in the Internet. Self-Rated Poverty is at its lowest point since the record low of 43% in March 1987. The recent improvement coincides with the rise in the public's net satisfaction with the national administration's performance in Helping the Poor to +27 in June from +14 last March. Self-Rated Poverty declined most of all in the Visayas, from 78% to 58% between March and June 2003, followed by Metro Manila, from 40% to 29% over the period. Mindanao had an insignificant change from 74% to 70%, and the Balance of Luzon stayed at 49%, the SWS said. The proportion of families reporting that they experienced hunger, without having anything to eat, at least once in the last three months was a very low 6.6% in June 2003, which is close to the 6.7% of March 2003 and the record low 6.5% of October 1999. These are the only times for hunger to be below 7% since the SWS quarterly surveys of hunger began in July 1998. Previous to March 2003, the average proportion of Filipino families experiencing hunger was over 10%. The June 2003 hunger proportion of 6.6% consists of 5.1% who experienced it only once or a few times, which is termed Moderate Hunger, and 1.5% who went through it often or always, which is Severe Hunger. The SWS survey also found 30% optimistic that their quality of life would improve in the next 12 months, and only 19% pessimistic that it would decline, for a Net Optimism score of +12, without rounding error. Optimism now prevails in all social classes (ABC +26, D +11, E +8). Thus there has been a decided recovery from the Iraq war-affected time of March 2003, when only 24% were optimists and 28 were pessimists, or a Net Optimism score of -5, one of the rare times when pessimism dominated over optimism, SWS said. Comparing their present quality of life to 12 months ago, 19% said they had gained and 41% said they had lost, for a Net Gainers score of -22. Although unfavorable, it is not as bad as in March 2003, when 14% were Gainers and 55% were Losers, or a very poor Net Gainers score of -41. |