Jamaica’s poverty prevalence for 2023 was estimated at 8.2 per cent, a decline from 16.7 per cent in 2021.

Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) Director-General Dr Wayne Henry disclosed that it was “the lowest figure ever recorded since poverty rates were first measured in 1989”.

Addressing the PIOJ’s quarterly briefing on Wednesday (May 21), he said the estimates were computed from the Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions (JSLC) data collected by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN).

Henry advised that data prior to 2012 should not be compared with data from 2012 to 2023.

“In 2018, STATIN revised the sample design and weighting methodology applied to the JSLC sample. The 2012 to 2017 data have since been revised to account for these changes to facilitate comparability with 2018 and subsequent years,” he explained.

Additionally, he shared that no poverty estimate is available for 2022, as the JSLC was not conducted that year due to the initiation of the National Population and Housing Census.

Dr Henry pointed out that in 2012, poverty in Jamaica was 19.7 per cent, meaning nearly one in every five Jamaicans was consuming below the poverty line.

Since then, he said poverty rates have trended downwards, except in 2021, when it spiked to 16.7 per cent, likely due to the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In the Greater Kingston Metropolitan Area, poverty fell from 10.4 per cent in 2021 to three per cent in 2023… In other urban centres, the rate declined to nine per cent from 15.5 per cent in 2021,” he detailed.

Meanwhile, in rural areas, which historically experience the highest rates of poverty, the rate dropped from 22.1 per cent to 11.5 per cent.

The PIOJ director general reasoned that the decline in the poverty rate was driven by several factors, which included increases in the national minimum wage, Jamaica’s recovery from COVID-19, improved macroeconomic stability, increased employment and strengthening of social protection programmes.

“Vital support was through the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH), the Social Pension Programme, Poor Relief Programme and targeted interventions aimed at generating youth employment and encouraging small-scale agriculture,” he said.

He also shared that remittances continue to be an important source of household income, highlighting that in 2023, net remittance inflows totalled US$3.4 billion.

The Director General explained that while this represented a decline compared with the peak levels recorded during the pandemic, nearly half of all Jamaican households reported receiving remittances in 2023, which often bolster household resilience, especially among lower-income families.

“In addition to this national decline in poverty, there was a reduction in food poverty, also referred to as extreme poverty. In the Jamaican context, food poverty refers to the inability of a household to afford the minimum daily caloric intake required for good health. In 2023, the food poverty rate fell to 2.8 per cent, down from 5.8 per cent in 2021 and four per cent in 2019, marking the lowest level on record,” Henry added.

The poverty estimate for 2024 will be provided later this year once the JSLC data is received from STATIN.