With the country’s unemployment rate at a record low and economic growth back to pre-COVID levels, the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) is projecting a fall in Jamaica’s poverty rate.
PIOJ Director General Dr Wayne Henry said the poverty rate is expected to fall from the 16.7 per cent to which it rose during the onset of the COVID pandemic, which severely impacted the livelihoods of many Jamaicans.
Speaking at the institute’s quarterly press briefing on Thursday, August 17, Henry said the overall rise in poverty in 2021 was driven by increases in two regions of the island, noting that the rate in the third was statistically the same. He informed that the rate increased in the Greater Kingston Metropolitan Area by 5.7 percentage points and rural areas by 7.9 percentage points, but remained relatively unchanged in other urban centres.
“Rural areas registered the highest rate at 22.1 per cent, followed by other urban centres at 15.5 per cent and the Greater Kingston Metropolitan Area at 10.4 per cent,” Henry outlined.
The PIOJ head said COVID-19 negatively affected the lives and livelihood of persons, leaving a “legacy of rising poverty and widening inequality”.
“While the Jamaican economy recorded growth of 4.6 per cent in 2021, and employment increased by 8.3 per cent in July 2021 relative to July 2020, real GDP (gross domestic product) was still 5.8 per cent below its 2019 level and employment was 3.3 per cent below what it was in July 2019. These factors explain the higher poverty rate in 2021 relative to 2019,” he explained.
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