Income gap between poorest, richest Pinoys remains wide
March 28, 2016 at 13:58
Income gap between poorest, richest Pinoys remains wide
Despite President Aquino’s efforts to attain inclusive growth, the narrowing of the gap between the incomes of the richest and the poorest Filipinos remains slow under the current administration.
Data obtained by the BusinessMirror from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed the income growth of the richest Filipinos—those at the top 10 percent of the income bracket—is 11.35 times more than what the poorest, or the bottom 10 percent, earn.
Reducing income inequality is part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 10 which aims to reduce inequality within and among countries by 2030.
SDG 10 aims to “progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population at a rate higher than the national average.”
In the Philippines the disparity ratio of the income of the top 10 percent and the bottom 10 percent, however, declined by 0.72 percentage points from 12.07 percent posted in the first semester of 2012.
Poverty reduction may have been faster under the previous administration since the decline in the ratio of the income of the top 10 percent and bottom 10 percent in the first semester of 2009 was larger at 1.05 percentage points.
The ratio of income disparity between the top 10 percent and bottom 10 percent declined to 12.06 in 2009, from 13.12 in 2006.
“We are seeing improvements in income distribution. Per-capita income of the bottom 30 percent of households grew much faster. In fact, it was over 20 percent from 2012 to 2015 than the average income of all households, which grew by 15.3 percent,” Economic Planning Secretary Emmanuel F. Esguerra said.
“Certainly, a lot more needs to be done and we cannot be content with these achievements. Despite these improved numbers, the decline in poverty could have been more,” he said.
The Aquino administration said improvements in poverty incidence nationwide to 26.3 percent in the first semester of 2015, from 27.9 percent in the same period of 2012, was largely due to the expansion of its social-service spending, most notably the Conditional Cash-Transfer (CCT) Program.
The CCT Program, locally known as the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), has grown in budget by more than 500 percent since 2010, and now covers more than 4 million beneficiary households from only 630,000 in 2009.
The government noted that it has scaled up its real per-capita spending for social services by 13 percent on a year-on-year basis.
This is significant, the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) said, since public spending on social services between 2000 and 2003 contracted on an annual basis.
Between 2004 and 2010, the government’s social spending only increased 1.1 percent in real per-capita terms.
Last week Esguerra said poverty incidence in the first semester of 2015 could have been lower had it not been for the high prices of basic food items, natural calamities, such as Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) and the Bohol earthquake, and armed conflict, such as the Zamboanga siege.
Esguerra said food items, such as rice, remained high. He said that, while rice prices were lower compared to 2014, it remained 20 percent higher than its price in 2012.
The impact of Yolanda and other shocks on poverty incidence was most felt in Region 8 or Eastern Visayas, where poverty incidence has been on the rise since 2006.
Poverty incidence in Region 8 increased to 47.3 percent in the first semester of 2015, from 45.4 percent in 2012; 43.8 percent in 2009; and 41.4 percent in 2006.
The highest poverty-incidence rate in the region is Northern Samar where poverty increased to 61.6 percent in 2015, from 53.1 percent in 2012.
Source: www.businessmirror.com.ph
