Gov’t mulling using expenditures rather than income to measure poverty

The government is mulling measuring the number of poor Filipinos in terms of consumption instead of earnings as it fine-tunes a new bi-annual state-funded survey on poverty to be released next month, the country’s top economist said.

“The first semester of 2012 data on poverty will be released within the first quarter of 2013. We just have conceptual issues that have to be sorted out to make sure that what will come out with will not be a product of a statistical artifact,” Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan told reporters.

“We’re looking if appropriate pa rin ba yung income [to measure poverty]. Sa ibang countries… expenditures ang tinitignan,” he added.

According to Balisacan, who is also National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Director General, the problem with income is it is “seasonal” and may not effectively show a person’s welfare.

“Fluctuations of one’s expenditure is less than the fluctuation of income. Kung gusto mo i-measure yung well-being ng tao mas accurate yung expenditure,” he said.

The government is also looking at other measures of welfare, like access to basic education and health services as well as the ability to participate in civil society.

Asked if those who use credit to spend will affect the accuracy of the survey, NEDA Deputy Director General Emmanuel Esguerra said, “No.”

“A fact that you can borrow or you have access to credit is another indicator that you have access to welfare,” Esguerra explained at the same interview.

Both NEDA officials, however, said nothing is still final in terms of what the government will use in measuring poverty.

Balisacan said should poverty still be measured in terms of income, it will be based on the 2009 poverty threshold but will be adjusted for rise in consumer prices.

“We’ll keep the poverty line constant in real terms after adjusting for inflation. We’re just adjusting for the changes in cost of living,” he noted, adding that a base line is needed as a “yardstick to measure progress.”

The chief economist has noted the need for constant monitoring of poverty data to boost efforts in curbing the number of poor Filipinos and monitor the effects of social programs.

Currently, the government does not conduct annual poverty surveys. The National Statistical Coordination Board, the agency tasked to generate official poverty statistics, last released select poverty indicators in 2009 under the Family Income and Expenditures Survey.

More than one-quarter or 26.5 percent of the population fell below the poverty line in 2009, latest data show. The government has defined the poor as those earning below P7,017 a month for a family of five, or below P16,841 per capita a year.

Statistics on poverty, however, have been provided by independent, private polling institutions like the Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia. — BM, GMA News