A recent poll by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) revealed that 51 percent of Filipino families still saw themselves poor.

According to their first quarter 2023 survey, 30 percent of the families rated themselves as borderline while 19 percent rated themselves not poor.

The results were similar to December 2022, when poor families were at 51 percent, borderline families at 31 percent and not poor families at 19 percent.

SWS said the steady nationwide self-rated figure between December 2022 and March 2023 was due to increases in Metro Manila and the Visayas, combined with a decline in Balance Luzon (or Luzon outside Metro Manila) and a steady score in Mindanao.

Compared to December 2022, self-rated poor families rose in Metro Manila from 32 percent to 40 percent and in the Visayas from 58 percent to 65 percent.

In Balance Luzon, it declined from 49 percent to 43 percent while in Mindanao it went up from 59 percent to 62 percent.

Borderline families in Manila went down from 29 to 26 percent, in Balance Luzon rose from 30 percent to 32 percent, and in Mindanao rose from 30 to 33 percent. Meanwhile, it fell in the Visayas from 34 percent to 26 percent.

Not poor families rose in Balance Luzon from 20 percent to 25 percent while it went down in Metro Manila from 39 percent to 33 percent and in Mindanao from 11 percent to 6 percent, Visayas stayed at nine percent.

The poll was conducted from March 26 to 29 using face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults nationwide.

Jaspearl Tan