CWR | Center for Women's Resources

The Center for Women’s Resources (CWR)* cautioned the Marcos administration against presenting the reported decline in official poverty incidence as proof that Filipino families are now living better, saying that statistical improvement does not automatically translate into economic security, decent work, or a life of dignity.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that the proportion of Filipinos classified as poor fell from 15.5 percent in 2023 to 9.7 percent in 2025 – equivalent to a decline from approximately 17.5 million to 11.1 million people. The government has described the figures as significant progress in poverty reduction.

CWR, however, said that the government’s poverty figures represent a serious distortion of the actual extent and depth of poverty in the Philippines. By relying on a poverty threshold that does not adequately reflect the real cost of living or the income required for families to meet their basic needs and live with dignity, the government effectively narrows the definition of who is considered poor. This makes poverty appear smaller on paper than it is in people’s everyday lives. 

Millions of Filipinos who continue to struggle to afford adequate food, housing, healthcare, education, transportation and other basic necessities may be classified as non-poor because their income falls slightly higher above the official poverty threshold. In this sense, the government’s poverty statistics can obscure rather than illuminate the extent of economic hardship experienced by Filipino families. 

For CWR, the Marcos administration is using this statistical framework to create the impression that its poverty reduction program is effective, when the underlying economic conditions that produce poverty remain largely unchanged. 

“The government is celebrating how many people have crossed the poverty line, but it is not asking the more important question: What kind of life can a Filipino family actually afford after crossing that line?” said CWR Executive Director Cham Perez.

“The problem is not simply that millions are classified as poor. Millions more remain economically insecure – struggling to afford food, housing, healthcare, education, transportation, and other basic needs – yet are no longer counted as poor under the government’s narrow and conservative statistical definition,” Perez added.

A poverty line too low to live on

The inadequacy of the government’s poverty measure becomes clearer when the official poverty threshold is compared with the actual costs of meeting a family’s basic needs. 

The 2025 annual per-capita poverty threshold was P35,121, or approximately P96.22 per person per day, according to figures cited by the IBON Foundation. For a family of five, this translates  to only around P14,634 per month.

Under this standard, a family earning even slightly above the threshold may be officially classified as non-poor despite struggling to pay for food, rent, electricity, transportation, education, healthcare, and other necessities.

CWR said the situation exposes the gap between being technically above the poverty threshold and being able to live a decent and secure life.

The gap becomes even more stark when the official poverty threshold is compared with what families actually need to meet their basic requirements. As of July 2026, a family of five needs a living wage of P1,277 per day, while a family of six needs P1,533 per day. The average minimum wage nationwide, meanwhile, is only P512 per day.

A minimum-wage worker earning the national average therefore receives only about 40 percent of what a family of five needs and roughly one-third of what a family of six needs.

“For millions of Filipino workers, the issue is not whether they are technically above the poverty line. The issue is whether their wages can actually sustain their families,” Perez said.

“An income that places a family just above an extremely low poverty threshold cannot be presented as proof of economic well-being. If a worker must work longer hours, take on additional jobs, borrow money, or depend on government assistance just to put food on the table and pay for basic services, then poverty and economic insecurity remain very real,” she added.

Women remain economically insecure

For CWR, the government’s poverty narrative also obscures the particular economic conditions faced by Filipino women, many of whom remain excluded from stable, adequately paid, and protected employment.

Having a job does not necessarily mean having economic security. Many are concentrated in vulnerable and informal work– including vending, home-based work, domestic work, and gig work—where workers may lack stable employment, adequate wages, benefits, and social protection.

CWR estimates that more than 20 million women face economic insecurity because of insufficient income, limited livelihood and employment opportunities, and job insecurity.

The shortage of decent and sufficient employment is also reflected in official labor statistics. As of June 2026, at least 2.59 million Filipinos were unemployed, up from 1.95 million in June 2025. Another 6.11 million were underemployed – already working but seeking additional hours, additional work, or a new job with longer hours.

CWR said these figures demonstrate why employment rates alone cannot be used as evidence of economic well-being.

“Having a job is not synonymous with having a decent livelihood,” Perez said. “A person working only a few hours, a worker seeking more hours because current income is insufficient, or a woman forced into precarious informal work cannot simply be counted as evidence that poverty is being resolved.”

High self-rated poverty

CWR also pointed to the difference between official poverty figures and people’s own assessment of their economic condition. A Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey released in January 2026 found that 51 percent of Filipino families, or approximately 14.3 million families, considered themselves poor.

CWR emphasized that the SWS self-rated poverty measure and the PSA’s official poverty measure use different methodologies and should not be treated as directly comparable statistics. Nevertheless, the contrast highlights the limits of relying on a single income threshold to understand how Filipino families experience poverty and economic insecurity.

“Statistics are important, but they should illuminate people’s realities rather than conceal them,” Perez said. “When millions of families continue to feel poor and economically insecure despite being counted as above the official poverty line, the government must examine what its poverty measure is failing to capture.”

Measure progress by people’s lives

For CWR, genuine poverty reduction requires confronting the structural conditions that produce and reproduce poverty – particularly the country’s lack of national industrialization and its backward agricultural economy, which continue to limit the availability of stable and decent-paying jobs.

“Poverty cannot be solved by simply moving people from one side of a statistical line to the other,” Perez noted. “The government’s measure of success should not be how many Filipinos are no longer counted as poor, but how many families can actually afford nutritious food, decent housing, quality education and healthcare, secure livelihoods, and a life free from constant economic anxiety.”

“Filipino women deserve more than being statistically classified as non-poor. They deserve decent work, adequate incomes, accessible public services, social protection, and the conditions to live with dignity and security,” Perez concluded.

*The Center for Women’s Resources is a Philippine non-profit women’s organization that conducts research, education, and advocacy on issues affecting women and marginalized communities.

The Center for Women’s Resources (CWR) asserted that the World Bank’s reclassification of the Philippines as an upper middle-income country (UMIC) should not be interpreted as proof that the lives of Filipino women have substantially improved.  

According to CWR, the World Bank’s income classification is based primarily on gross national income (GNI) per capita—an average income measure that fails to capture income inequality, poverty, labor conditions, or women’s economic realities. 

CWR contends that despite the country’s higher income classification, millions of Filipino women continue to face low wages, insecure and informal employment, rising living costs, and limited access to quality public services. The organization argues that the designation creates an illusion of development while overlooking the structural inequalities that persist in Philippine society. 

“The problem with relying on an average income measure is that averages conceal inequality,” CWR Executive Director Cham Perez explained. “The enormous wealth accumulated by a handful of billionaires raises the country’s average income, but this does not mean that ordinary workers are earning more or living better.” 

Perez noted that the disparity between the country’s wealthiest individuals and ordinary workers illustrates the limitations of income-based classifications. While billionaires like Enrique Razon and Ramon Ang have amassed fortunes worth billions of dollars, millions of Filipino workers continue to survive on wages that barely cover the cost of daily necessities. A minimum wage earner in Metro Manila receiving ₱695 a day remains worlds apart from the country’s wealthiest business elites, yet both are reflected in the same national average used to determine the country’s income classification. 

CWR said this disconnect is reflected across multiple social and economic indicators. 

Women’s labor force participation remains only 52.3% compared with 75.2% for men, indicating that millions of women continue to face barriers to paid employment. Among those who are employed, many remain concentrated in low-paying and precarious occupations, including domestic work, vending, home-based work, gig work, and export-oriented manufacturing, where contractualization, low wages, and limited social protection remain widespread.

CWR estimates that well over 20 million Filipino women continue to experience economic insecurity because of insufficient income, unstable employment, lack of livelihood opportunities, or exclusion from paid work due to caregiving responsibilities. 

CWR also questioned the government’s employment statistics, noting that anyone who worked for at least an hour during the reference week is officially counted as employed. While employment rates may appear favorable on paper, they often conceal the realities of underemployment, irregular work, and wages that remain insufficient to meet a family’s basic needs. 

“The real condition of workers cannot be measured simply by employment figures,” Perez said. “Having a job does not mean having a decent livelihood. Millions of Filipinos are working but remain poor because their wages are too low, their jobs are insecure, or they cannot find enough hours of work.”

These realities are reflected in people’s own assessment of their living conditions. The January 2026 Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showed that 51% of Filipino families, or an estimated 14.3 million households, consider themselves poor, a clear indication of the discrepancy between macroeconomic indicators and people’s lived experiences.

Women also continue to face persistent wage inequality. The gender wage gap is largest in occupations where women are highly concentrated, at 26.2% for service and sales workers and 29.4% for workers in elementary occupations, demonstrating how occupational segregation continues to depress women’s earnings.

These conditions are rooted in decades of neoliberal policies that prioritize foreign investment, trade liberalization, deregulation, and privatization over building domestic industries and modernizing agriculture, according to CWR. The organization noted that the same international financial institutions that now classify the Philippines as an upper middle-income country have long promoted these policies through development lending and policy prescriptions.

“Instead of building a strong domestic industrial base and a productive agricultural sector, these policies have encouraged greater dependence on foreign investment, imports, labor export, and cheap Filipino labor,” Perez said. “The result has been an economy that generates wealth for corporations and a small elite while leaving millions of workers – especially women – in precarious employment, low-paying jobs, and economic insecurity.”

Perez also warned that the country’s upgraded income status comes amid a growing public debt burden. Outstanding national government debt reached ₱17.71 trillion by the end of 2025 and is projected to approach ₱19 trillion by the end of 2026. This year alone, approximately ₱950 billion will be spent on debt servicing – resources that could otherwise be invested in health care, education, childcare, housing, and social protection.

CWR further cautioned that, as an upper middle-income country, the Philippines may gradually lose access to concessional financing, potentially increasing borrowing costs without addressing the structural causes of poverty and inequality. 

“Development cannot be measured simply by crossing an income threshold,” Perez said. “The real question is whether economic growth has translated into secure livelihoods, living wages, affordable food, quality education, accessible health care, and a life of dignity for Filipino women and their families.”

Rather than celebrating a statistical milestone, CWR called on the Marcos Jr. administration to pursue a development strategy anchored in national industrialization, genuine agrarian reform, living wages, strengthened labor rights, universal social protection, expanded public care services, and gender-responsive public investments. The organization also urged the government to adopt a more progressive fiscal system that ensures those with the greatest wealth contribute a greater share toward financing public services.

“Women should not be asked to measure progress through economic statistics that fail to reflect their everyday realities,” Perez concluded. “Real development occurs only when women are free from poverty, have decent and secure jobs, receive equal pay for equal work, and enjoy access to quality public services.”