Urip Hudiono, Jakarta – The number of poor people has declined slightly due to better economic conditions of late and the government's poverty-alleviation programs, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) says.
As of the end of March, the number of poor people – classified as those with expenditures of less than US$18 a month – had decreased by 2.13 million people to 37.17 million, or 16.58 percent of the country's population of 224 million, the BPS reported Monday when announcing the results of its latest nationwide socioeconomic census.
This is down from the 39.3 million poor people, or 17.75 percent of a population of 221 million, recorded by the BPS at the end of March last year.
The number of rural poor decreased by 1.2 million to 23.61 million during the year. Indonesia's urban areas also saw 930,000 fewer poor people, leaving 13.56 million people classified as living in poverty.
The latest figures are derived from the BPS's annual consumption trends survey, which covers 68,000 households around the country and classifies households as being poor based upon a minimum-expenditure-based poverty line.
The poverty line for this year's survey was set at a basic expenditure of Rp 166,697 (US$18.5) per capita per month, as compared to Rp 151,997 in March last year.
Another noticeable difference with this year's poverty statistics is that the BPS has not any given figures for the number of people who are close to falling below the poverty line and the number of people who are close to rising above it, unlike in 2006.
Last year's poverty data – which saw a 3.95 million rise in the number of poor people – revealed that 30.29 percent of those categorized as "near poor", 11.82 percent as "almost out of poverty" and 2.29 percent as "not poor" in February 2005 had plunged into destitution by the end of March 2006. Only 6.45 percent of poor people saw themselves rising to the "not poor" category over the same period.
BPS social statistics deputy director Arizal Ahnaf said that this year's poverty line had been raised due to the rising price of basic foodstuffs, including the national staple, rice, as well as housing.
Arizal said that the decrease in the number of poor people was due to their obtaining additional income that was more than enough to offset their increasing expenditure on basic necessities.
"This might be the result of the government's direct cash payments to the poor, with people then using the money to set up small businesses or find productive employment," he said.
However, the fall of 2.13 million in the number of officially recognized poor people is still not enough to make up for the 3.95 million people who found themselves thrown into poverty last year.
The number of poor also remains high as compared to the 34.1 million people recorded as poor in 1994, when Indonesia's economy was on a high. The number of poor rose to 49.5 million in 1998 following the crisis, before falling to 35.1 million in 2005 as economic growth began to recover.
Based on the World Bank's definition of poverty – living on less than $2 a day, the standard used in most parts of the world – nearly half of Indonesia's population would be categorized as poor.