The survey also found that 27% of families rated themselves as "borderline” or between the "poor" and "not poor" categories, which is a decrease of six points from the previous survey. Meanwhile, 25% of families rated themselves as "hindi mahirap" or "not poor," a three-point increase from June. SWS based its estimated number of self-rated poor families on the percentage of respondent households rating themselves as poor as applied to the Philippine Statistics Authority medium-population projections for 2023. “This indicates that poor families have been lowering their living standards, i.e., belt-tightening,” the survey body said. According to SWS’ estimates, this represents 1.8 million “newly poor” families out of 13.2 million families who rated themselves as poor.

Source: Philippine Star November 01, 2023 17:02 UTC