The number of families in the country who considered themselves poor as of March slightly declined from December last year at the back of lower self-rated poor families in Mindanao and Metro Manila, Social Weather Stations (SWS) said on Thursday.

Based on the poll that SWS conducted last March, 46 percent or 12.9 million Filipino families rated themselves as poor, a slight decline from 13 million in December 2023.

"Compared to December 2023, the percentage of poor families hardly changed from 47 percent," SWS said.

SWS said the self-rated poverty was reported highest in the Visayas at 64 percent in March from 58 percent, followed by Mindanao at 56 percent from 61 percent.

In Balance Luzon – or areas outside Metro Manila – the self-rated poverty rate reached 38 percent in March from 39 percent in December.

Metro Manila, on the other hand, reported the lowest at 33 percent as of March from 37 percent last December.

Additionally, 30 percent of families considered themselves borderline poor, and 23 percent identified as not poor.

According to the survey, 33 percent of families classified themselves as "food-poor" based on their dietary consumption, a figure that has remained nearly unchanged since December.

On the other hand, 36 percent said they were almost running out of food, while 41 percent said they were not.

However, the Social Weather Stations highlighted an increase in self-rated food poverty in both the Visayas and Metro Manila.

The national average threshold for self-rated food poverty has consistently been P8,000 over the last five quarters, and the national median self-rated food poverty gap has been P3,000 over the previous ten quarters.

The SWS survey conducted face-to-face interviews in the first quarter of 2024 with 1,500 adults nationwide. The survey's margin of error is ±2.5 percent for national percentages, ±4.0 percent for Balance Luzon, and ±5.7 percent for each Metro Manila, Visayas, and Mindanao.