Poverty Line at $10 a Day

[Linked Image] Last week on this newscast - Albert Area Representative Mark Espat said that the Poverty Assessment Survey would show that the percentage of Belizeans living in poverty had grown from 33% to 43% between 2002 and 2009. We expected that information would have been officially released today when the - but it wasn't; in fact, that will be released next week. Today was a media workshop to advise the media on how to interpret the survey. Similar workshops are being held with all relevant stakeholders for their input. Carlos Pol - the economist in charge of the survey told us more.

Jules Vasquez,
"Has the poverty level grown, has the number of those likely to go into poverty grown? You are not releasing the figures."

Carlos Pol, Economist
"No at the moment we are not releasing the figures. What we did this morning with the media is that we showed how we get to the poverty line meaning the dollar cost for poverty line and indigent line and we explained to them how we calculate it but we are not releasing figures of if poverty has increased or decreased. This will be made next Tuesday at the national consultation."

Jules Vasquez,
"Looking at it in the most suspicious ways one can, are you having these consultations to sort of soften the blow for what may come next week?"

Carlos Pol,
"Not necessarily no, we are not doing that. We are just bringing to the people to all stakeholders what they gave us when we consulted them for them to have another opportunity to validate. For the moment what we can share is that for the national level, for you to be considered a poor person we have a daily amount of $10. If you do not have ten dollars with you for your food items we are considering you a poor person."

The survey will be released next Thursday but we'll have an advance review of some major fining in tomorrow's newscast.

http://www.7newsbelize.com/sstory.php?nid=16028

Live and let live