CLOSE to half of the Filipinos still consider themselves as poor, while 75 percent rate themselves as borderline, as based on the survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS).

The said survey, done during early 2023, said that the Filipinos would rate their family, 47% of the respondents in December said they were poor.

This reflected some estimated 13.0 million self-rated poor families. 

But this is slightly lower than the 48% or 13.2 million families in September.

This is also down from 51% in December 2022.

The SWS said that the slight decline was attributed to the decrease in Mindanao, where self-rated poverty decreased to 61% from 71% in September.

However, it was partly offset by the increase in balance Luzon to 39% from 35%.

Self-rated poverty in Metro Manila slightly dropped to 37% from 38%, and in the Visayas region to 58% from 59%.

On the other hand, out of the 13-million self-rated poor families, 2.2 million said they were “newly poor” or they were not poor in the past four years.

Some 1.6 million said they were “usually poor,” and 9.2 million were “always poor.”

The annual average of self-rated poor families is at 48% in 2023, unchanged from the previous year and three percentage points higher than the pre-pandemic average of 45% recorded in 2019.

SWS said that the 33% of the respondents had rated themselves on the borderline dividing poor and not poor, with up from the 27% recorded in the previous survey.