A FAMILY of five in the Philippines now needs around P20,000 per month to cover basic food and non-food expenses, a congressman said late Tuesday.
The Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DEPDev) has raised the poverty threshold to about P668 per day for a Filipino family from P517, updating the estimates for basic needs from the 2023 benchmark, Sultan Kudarat Rep. Bella Vanessa B. Suansing said.
“That’s a jump of at least P5,000 per month,” she told lawmakers at a budget hearing where Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan was in attendance, referring to the past threshold.
Ms. Suansing said the DEPDev revised the food poverty threshold, setting it at about P12,000 per month for a family of five, or P422 per day to meet basic nutritional needs.
“[The] food threshold would be at P12,832, so that’s almost a P2,000 jump from the food threshold in 2023,” she said.
Reports last year pegging the food poverty threshold at just P64 per person drew widespread criticism, prompting authorities to revise the benchmark. This year’s food poverty threshold has been set at P84 per person every day.
Ms. Suansing said the updated food poverty is sufficient for “energy-giving, protein-rich and vitamin-rich” meals throughout the day, responding to a question from Party-list Rep. Elijah R. San Fernando.
Meanwhile, she said that a legislated wage hike could dampen economic activity, stoke inflation and trigger job losses for hundreds of thousands of Filipinos amid renewed calls to push a wage increase in Congress.
She said that enacting a P200 wage hike law could slow economic growth by up to 1.5%, push inflation by as much as 1.9% and lead to 360,000 Filipinos losing employment, citing DEPDev data.
“The DEPDev ran simulations on wage hikes… on how this would impact GDP (gross domestic product) growth, inflation and employment,” said Ms. Suansing.
She said a legislated P100 minimum wage increase could reduce economic output by 0.5%, push inflation up by 0.6%, and raise the unemployment rate by 0.2%, potentially resulting in 120,000 job losses.
A legislated P150 minimum wage increase could shave 1% off GDP growth, raise inflation by 1.3%, and push the jobless rate up by 0.5%, possibly leading to 237,000 in employment losses, she added. — Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio
