Are We Poor?

I saw an interesting article in Malaysian Insider today, with the title is "How poor are we?". Even before I read on, I knew what it was trying to tell; the reality of the poverty condition in our country.

I don't believe the newspaper reported poverty facts and statistics, more so after what is revealed in this article. Someone did a research and showed to us how the government's definition is incorrect.

Below were some of the arguments, taken from the article. You be the judge.

1) Our poverty base line was defined at RM800. But the actual figures depend on the geographical location of the poor. This means if someone from Peninsular earns RM810, he/she is not considered poor. This income is necessary to buy a group of foods that would meet the nutritional needs of the members of a household, and to meet other basic necessities such as clothing, rent, fuel and utilities, transport and communications, medical expenses, education and recreation.”

2) The World Bank standard recommends that medium-income countries should calculate the Poverty Line Index (PLI) based on US$2 (RM6.20) per individual per day. If that figure was used for Malaysia, a theoretical household of 4.4 people would then need RM858 a month to not be declared poor.

3) However, using Malaysia's defined PLI of RM763, it is translated into a daily income of RM25.45. This means that to the government, you are able to live on RM5.80 a day. RM5.80 is supposed to pay for three meals, transport costs, rent, recreation and the other components for ONE person in ONE day!

5) If we follow countries such as Britain and Australia, the PLIs will based on the median income of its households. In Malaysia the median income is RM2,830. Using this method, the poor people in the country should be earning below RM1,886. In effect, this translates into RM14.20 per day for an individual to meet all their eight needs.

Therefore, from what I understand from the statements above, there should be more poor people than we thought there are, and many of the people living in the city don't know they actually fall into the poverty zone.