SWS survey: Half, or 14m, Filipino families call selves poor in Q1 ‘23

2023 and 12.9 million in December 2022.

By Julito Rada

also found that 30% of families rated themselves as “borderline” poor and 19% rated themselves as not poor, similar to the figure recorded in December 2022.

“The estimated numbers of Self-Rated Poor families are 14 million in March

To arrive at the estimated numbers of SelfRated Poor families, the percentage of respondent households rating themselves as poor was applied to the Philippine Statistics Authority medium-population projections for 2023 and 2022, respectively,” the SWS survey said. According to the National Economic and Development Authority, families tend to self-rate themselves as poor when the inflation rate, particularly food inflation, is high.

“The SWS survey results for March 2023 reflect that tendency, even as the

THE unemployment rate in March 2023 declined to 4.7 percent from 5.8 percent a year ago and 4.8 percent in February, translating to 2.42 million jobless Filipinos out of 51 million who were in the labor force during the period, the Philippine Statistics Authority said Monday.

The country’s employment rate in March rose to 95.3 percent from the reported employment rate in the same month last year at 94.2 percent and in the previous month at 95.2 percent.

In terms of magnitude, the number of employed persons in March was estimated at 48.58 million, an increase of 1.61 million from the 46.98 million employed persons in March 2022.

The Labor Force Participation