Poverty at Record Low of 7.8 Per Cent

Jamaica’s poverty rate dropped to a record low of 7.8 per cent in 2024.

The rate, which is the lowest on record since 1989, is down from the previous historic low of 8.2 per cent in 2023.

Director General of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), Dr. Wayne Henry, in providing the statistics during the entity’s hybrid quarterly press conference on Tuesday (November 25), said that given the margin of error, the 2024 rate is statistically similar to the 8.2 per cent recorded in the previous year.

“The results indicate that poverty remained at levels similar to 2023, despite economic shocks. The relative stability of the poverty rate occurred in a year of economic disruption, as real gross domestic product (GDP) contracted due to weather-related shocks, which reduced agricultural output and rural earnings. However, the Government’s targeted relief interventions, a moderation of inflation and increased employment helped to preserve household consumption,” he said.

He was reporting on the 2024 prevalence of poverty computed from the Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions (JSLC) data, which is collected by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN).

Dr. Henry said that the 2024 results reflect relative stability across all regions of the country.

In the Greater Kingston Metropolitan Area (GKMA), poverty was recorded at 2.5 per cent, relative to three per cent in 2023. The rate in the GKMA was the lowest across all regions, consistent with historical trends, he reported.

In Other Urban Centres (OUC), it was 9.4 per cent for 2024, relatively unchanged from the nine per cent recorded in 2023. In rural areas, which historically experience the highest rates of poverty, the rate was 11 per cent, down from 11.5 per cent recorded in 2023.

In Jamaica, consumption expenditure data, rather than income, is used to measure poverty due to the availability and relative accuracy of the data. The rates are first calculated from household data at the regional level, then aggregated nationally.

In 2012, poverty in Jamaica was 19.7 per cent, which meant nearly one in every five Jamaicans was consuming below the poverty line. Poverty rates have since trended downwards but spiked to 16.7 per cent in 2021, likely reflecting the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Henry reported that there was also relative stability in mean per capita consumption across the country.

Compared with 2023, nominal mean per capita consumption expenditure grew by 5.5 per cent in 2024. However, after adjusting for inflation, real mean per capita consumption rose by 1.1 per cent when compared with 2023.

Extreme poverty or food poverty was estimated at 2.7 per cent in 2024, showing no real change from 2023.

“This maintains Jamaica’s lowest recorded level of food poverty since 1989,” Dr. Henry said.

In the Jamaican context, food poverty refers to the inability of a household to afford the minimum daily caloric intake required for good health.

“There has been a general decline in the food poverty rate since 2013 when it was recorded at 10.3 per cent,” Dr. Henry noted.

He said the impact of targeted social protection expenditure and interventions contributed to the decline and created a buffer at the household level, which served to maintain consumption, given the heightened vulnerability of marginal households to economic contraction.

Meanwhile, the PIOJ advanced work on the national Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), to make its reporting more defined and more specific about poverty.

This MPI will complement the traditional monetary measure by capturing other factors such as limited access to education and healthcare, inadequate housing and unemployment, Dr Henry said.