Poverty

MANILA, Philippines – Malacañang is supporting a proposal in Congress to investigate the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)’s reported use of funds from the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program to billet Metro Manila street dwellers in a resort in Nasugbu, Batangas during the five-day visit of Pope Francis last week.

About one million fewer families experienced hunger in the last quarter of 2014, the Social Weather Stations (SWS) said in its latest survey. The survey found 17.2 percent of adult respondents (an estimated 3.8 million households) saying they have experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the fourth quarter of last year, lower than the…

Developing countries have started to weave social safety nets. Here’s how they should do it It is decades since developed countries first sought to ensure that none of their citizens was left destitute. Now, as we recently reported, developing countries are following suit. Between 2008 and 2013 the number offering at least some poor people…

The visit of Pope Francis had us talking and hearing a lot about poverty. He has denounced our economic system as exploitative of the poor that also violates the teachings of the Gospel.

Nearly two out of five Filipinos or 39 percent were optimistic that their quality of life would improve in the next 12 months, a 2014 third quarter poll taken by the Social Weather Stations found.

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MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) yesterday clarified their proposed monitoring and evaluation of the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program for next year was only P429.2 million, and not P4.2 billion.

Providing the poor with equal access to economic opportunities and basic services, like health in education, is the key to reducing inequality and poverty in the Philippines and other East Asian countries, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said Wednesday.

MANILA, Philippines – Roughly one out of every three Filipino children is drowning in abject poverty, according to the government’s think tank. The key findings of the study conducted by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) show that both the number and severity of poverty among Filipino children have been increasing through the years.

The more that poverty is scientifically quantified, the more it can be understood, and thereby better dealt with. Poverty is not static. It can change quickly, upward or downward, and can change at different rates in different locations. SWS has discovered this from quarterly surveys in four broad geographic areas of the Philippines. Other institutions…

MANILA, Philippines – The number of poor Filipinos decreased by 2.5 million last year, Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan told the House appropriations committee Friday.

The Asian Development Bank has released a report, produced under the responsibility of its new chief economist, which takes issue with using the World Bank’s US$1.25 a day definition of the extreme poverty threshold for estimating the number of poor in Asia and the Pacific and for designing policy responses.

LAGUNA, Philippines – Sex for food? “Before, clients from Calauan came here with a motorcycle. Then they pick up somebody with just one kilo of rice and a can of sardines. But now, they’d do it even with just a packet of noodles,” narrated Fr Salvador Pablo, head of the Salesian community in Bayan ni…

There were fewer hungry families in the second quarter of 2014, with about 300,000 fewer families going hungry compared to the first quarter, according to a survey by pollster Social Weather Stations.

MANILA, Philippines – The number of Filipino families who consider themselves poor rose by more than half a million in the past three months, a recent survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed. Fifty-five percent of respondents or about 12.1 million rated themselves poor or mahirap in the SWS nationwide survey.

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has released P35.3 billion as subsidy for the health insurance coverage of indigent families enrolled in the National Health Insurance Program (NHIP) or PhilHealth.

MANILA, Philippines – The Aquino administration’s proposed budget for its flagship program for the poor known as the conditional cash transfer (CCT) has almost quadrupled in the last four years, from P29.2 billion in 2011 to P78 billion next year.

FISHERMEN, farmers and children remain the poorest of the basic — or disadvantaged — sectors of Philippine society, the state statistical office said on Friday. Using data from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey and Labor Force Survey, the Philippine Statistical Authority (PSA) said poverty among fishermen, farmers and children hit 39.2%, 38.3% and 35.2%,…

EXTREME poverty may end within a generation, a report from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) said. “For the first time in history, the world may see the end of extreme poverty — as soon as the next generation,” the UNDP said in its 2013/2014 annual report, released Wednesday.

Increasing investments from employers to generate high-quality and remunerative employment is vital in achieving rapid poverty reduction towards inclusive growth, according to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).

(Updated 9:27 a.m.) Some 3.9 million Filipino families said they experienced going hungry in the first quarter of 2014, according to a new survey by pollster Social Weather Stations.

(Updated 8:50 a.m.) A new survey taken by pollster Social Weather Stations in the first quarter of 2014 found that 53 percent of Filipinos, equivalent to 11.5 million households, considered themselves poor.

In the revised Philippine Development Plan, the government will increase infrastructure spending, among other reforms, to lower poverty incidence to 16.6% by 2016

organization, made news at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year with its report that the world’s 85 richest people own assets with the same value as those owned by the poorer half of the world’s population, or 3.5 billion people (including children). Both groups have $US 1.7 trillion. That’s $20 billion on…

MANILA, Philippines – The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) says recent disasters that hit the country make it impossible to reduce poverty, based on targets set in the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations.

MANILA – The Philippines will have to downgrade its target to reduce poverty, officials warned Tuesday, a move which would leave an additional four million people virtually destitute in 2016.

MANILA, Philippines – The government will hold a second nationwide survey this summer to identify the poorest of the poor families.

Gov’t vows to bring down rate to 18%-20% by 2016 MANILA, Philippines—The government has conceded that the Philippines will miss its 2015 Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on poverty reduction.

The 7.2-percent GDP rise in 2013 is meaningless to most Filipinos. Government leaders know it, but can’t bring themselves to change it. In money terms, the economy gained P12 trillion in services and goods last year. Divided by the 100 million Filipinos, that’s P120,000 per capita income for every man, woman and child. Meaning, P10,000…

WASHINGTON – Raising the U.S. minimum wage would lead to the loss of about half a million jobs by late 2016 but lift almost a million Americans out of poverty, the Congressional Budget Office forecast in a report on Tuesday that reignited debate over one of President Barack Obama’s top priorities this year.