Putri Safira Pitaloka, Jakarta – The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) announced that the percentage of poor people in Indonesia in March 2025 decreased to 8.47 percent, a decrease of 0.10 percentage points of poverty rate from September 2024 and 0.56 percentage points from March 2024.
"The number of poor people in Indonesia (in March 2025) is 23.85 million, a decrease of 0.2 million compared to the condition in September 2024," said Deputy for Social Statistics at BPS Ateng Hartono as quoted from Antara.
Based on the distribution of islands, Java is still the center of national poverty with a total of 12.56 million or 52.66 percent of the national total. Meanwhile, Kalimantan recorded the lowest number of poor population with only 0.89 million people or 3.75 percent of the total.
However, when it comes to the highest poverty rate based on percentage, Papua Pegunungan becomes the poorest province in Indonesia in 2025. As reported on the official page of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), Papua Pegunungan recorded a poverty rate of 29.66 percent. This means that almost one in three people in the province live below the poverty line. This percentage is far above the national average of only 8.03 percent.
This condition reveals a large inequality gap between the western and eastern regions of Indonesia. While some provinces such as Jakarta only recorded a poverty rate of 2.39 percent, and Bali around 4 percent, Papua Pegunungan and its neighboring provinces show very different conditions.
After Papua Pegunungan, the provinces with the highest poverty rates are:
- Central Papua: 27.60 percent
- Southwest Papua: 23.04 percent
- West Papua: 21.09 percent
- South Papua: 19.35 percent
- East Nusa Tenggara (NTT): 19.02 percent
The central government has set a target to reduce the extreme poverty rate to zero percent by 2024. However, this target is still difficult to achieve in regions like Papua Pegunungan.
Source: https://en.tempo.co/read/2033080/here-are-the-indonesian-provinces-with-the-highest-poverty-rate