4 million families went hungry in past three months — SWS poll

ABOUT 4 million Filipino families went hungry at least once in the past three months, according to the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) poll.

The November hunger rate of 16% was 15 points below the record 30.7% or 7.6 million families who went hungry in the September SWS poll, it said in an emailed statement.

Still, this was double the pre-pandemic rate of 8.8% or about 2.1 million families in December 2019.

SWS interviewed 1,500 adults on Nov. 21 to 25 for the poll, which had an error margin of ±2.5.

SWS on Monday said almost half of Filipino families consider themselves poor.

It said 48% of families rated themselves poor and 36% said they were borderline poor. Only 16% felt they were not poor.

The November poll was the first time the pollster did face-to-face interviews since the coronavirus pandemic struck. The self-rated poverty poll could not be done in SWS mobile phone surveys earlier this year.

In December 2019, the last time that poll was done, there were 54% that felt poor, 23% felt borderline poor and 23% felt they were not poor. — NPA