Pandemic likely halted declining poverty rate in 2020
WITH the novel coronavirus pandemic likely to be blamed for arresting the dip in poverty that the country had been witnessing up to 2019, Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke says the Government is eager to receive the poverty data for 2020 before year end in order to tweak its policies to ensure the best response.
In providing the country with an update on the poverty rates for 2019 in Parliament yesterday, the finance minster said the poverty rate for 2019 was estimated at 11 per cent, compared to 12.6 per cent in 2018, which was considered relatively stable.
Jamaica has been measuring the poverty rate since 1989, the highest rate since then have been in 1992 and 1993, when it was 44.6 per cent and 33.9 per cent, respectively. The lowest rate of poverty achieved since then has been 9.9 per cent in 2007. Poverty increased thereafter, due to the severe impact of the global financial crisis, and climbed to 24.6 per cent by 2013.
Since then, however, Jamaica has had six-consecutive years of decline in poverty, dropping to 11 per cent in 2019, which was the lowest level recorded in 12 years.
Yesterday, the finance minister said the 11 per cent rate of poverty in 2019 was the second-lowest rate of poverty ever recorded in Jamaica in the last 32 years, but said the impact of the pandemic might have upended the situation.
Said Clarke: “There is no doubt that the unprecedented pandemic has most probably disrupted that downward decline in poverty. For six-consecutive years poverty declined from 24.6 per cent every year, down to a low of 11 per cent, the second-lowest level in 32 years. With the 10 per cent contraction in GDP [gross domestic product], the 130,000 jobs that we have lost will likely impact the poverty measures in 2020.”
“The Planning Institute of Jamaica [PIOJ] will be working hard towards having the 2020 data available before the end of this calendar year. It’s going to be important to have that data, because while we have a policy response, having the granular data will allow us to calibrate and fine-tune policy to make sure our response is effective,” he stated.
Poverty rates are calculated by the PIOJ based on consumption-expenditure data collected through the Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions, conducted annually by the Statistical Institute (STATIN), which captures data on the living conditions of the Jamaican population.
Yesterday, the Opposition People’s National Party spokesperson on finance, Julian Robinson, in acknowledging that any decline in poverty was welcome news, said the data for 2020 was anticipated. He, in the meantime, reiterated his call for more to be done for the “most vulnerable”, including women who head single-parent households and those in the informal sector.