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.
