Bohol poverty incidence Drops by 5.3% in 2018

Poverty incidence in Bohol continue to slide down in the last three years, from 31.3% in 2015 to 26% in 2018, recent data from the local Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) show.
By poverty incidence, the PSA means the minimum income and expenditure required for a family of five members to meet the basic food and non-food requirements every day.
Of the above figures, 2 for every 10 families did not meet their basic food and non-food needs, at least in the first semester or 2018, as to the PSA-released new data they gleaned from their most recent surveys in Bohol.
Is that bad enough? Yes and no.
Roughly, that means 26 of every 100 Boholano families can not afford to meet their basic food and non-food needs.
One good thing though, in 2015, the figure used to be 31 of every 100 Boholanos not affording to meet their basic food and non-food needs.
In its poverty statistics data for the first semester of 2018 that they produced, the PSA came out with the poverty threshold, poverty incidence, food threshold and subsistence incidence for Bohol.
The PSA said a family of five in Bohol would need P 12,613.00 per month to meet their basic needs in food and non-food requirements.
Beyond that, the family would belong to the figures in the poverty incidence, where the proportion of families with per capita income and expenditure is less than the per capita poverty threshold to the total number of families.
How much would a Boholano family of five, need to meet their basic food needs?
Here in Bohol, according to the PSA, a family of five needs at least P8,796.00 to meet their basic food needs in the same period.
Basic food means simple rice and viand, and nothing fancy, that a family would need to be productive.
With the same data, 8 in every 100 families do not have sufficient income to meet their basic food needs in the first semester of 2018.
Going factual and graphic about it, some 10.3% of all individuals can not afford their basic food needs in 2018.
The 10.3% however is already a good improvement from the 13.2% which popped up in the previous surveys.
Now at the start of another leadership, the PSA data would be an appropriate staring point, observers have said.
Capitol media, in their recent press statements have already praised the newly elected governor Arthur Yap for hitting the ground running.
Netizens however have said that if the local authorities would not be condoning the labor malpractices of businesses by forcing them to implement labor laws especially on the mandated minimum wage, that alone could help Boholano families jump up the poverty threshold.
According to the Regional Tripartite Wage Productivity Board in its Wage Order No. ROVII-21 which took effect in August of 2018, the current minimum daily wage for Bohol is P323.00 for non-agricultural work and P333.000 for employers hiring less than 10 workers.
With a family of five having two members working, a full minimum wage law implemented here is already enough to get a family past the 12,600+ threshold.
Sadly though, some non-agricultural workers here still get below P250.00 daily wage, a department store worker who refused to be named said. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

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