PH poverty magnitude back to pre-pandemic level as family poverty rate falls to 10.9%

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines has seen a decline in family poverty rates, dropping to 10.9% in 2023, an improvement from the 13.2% recorded in pandemic-hit 2021.

However, in terms of magnitude, the 2023 figure translates to about 3 million poor families, which merely mirrors the pre-pandemic level of 3 million poor families in 2018. This suggests that there was no decrease in the actual number of families classified as poor in the six years between 2018 to 2023.

On an individual level...