Over 50% of Filipino families still consider themselves poor, says survey

April 12, 2025 , 09:19 PM

(April 12, 2025) – More than half of Filipino families continue to consider themselves poor, according to a new survey.

The latest survey of Social Weather Stations (SWS) found that 52% of Filipino families rated themselves poor in March, a slight uptick from the 51% tallied in February. It is, however, an improvement from the 63% recorded in December.

“The estimated numbers of self-rated poor families were 14.3 million in February 2025 and 14.4 million in March 2025. The percentage of respondent households rating themselves as poor was applied to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) medium-population projections for 2025 to arrive at the estimated numbers of self-rated poor families,” said SWS in a media release on Saturday.

The survey was conducted from March 15 to 20.

Around 12% of the respondents said they were on the borderline—not quite poor but not yet comfortable. Meanwhile, 36% of them considered themselves not poor.

The highest self-rated poverty came from Visayas at 62%, followed by Mindanao at 60%, Balance Luzon at 46%, and Metro Manila at 41%.
SWS also reported a noticeable increase in hunger, especially among the poor.

“The March 2025 survey found that 27.2% of Filipino families experienced involuntary hunger—being hungry and not having anything to eat—at least once in the past three months,” added SWS.

The PSA reported that inflation eased to 1.8% in March, down from 2.1% in February. House Speaker Martin Romualdez credited it to the “economic intervention measures” of Pres. Bongbong Marcos Jr.

Romualdez and Marcos are cousins.

In 2023, the PSA reported a poverty rate of 15.5%, down from 18.1% in 2021. This translated to around 17.54 million Filipinos living below the poverty line.

In his State of the Nation Address last year, Marcos admitted that many Filipinos are still struggling with economic woes. He, however, remained optimistic, adding that he plans to bring down the poverty rate to a single digit by the end of his term, calling the goal “doable.”

(PM)

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