Dated data on poverty

THE EDITOR, Madam:

I write to respond to an error in your Gleaner story, ‘Clarke oversaw rise in GDP’. The story erroneously claims that the “prevalence of poverty moved to 16.7 per cent in 2023 or 5.7 percentage points higher relative to 2019”. This is false.

It was in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2021, that the poverty rate was measured at 16.7 per cent. This data was published by the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) in 2023.

The poverty rate for 2023 has not yet been determined. At the time of publication of the 2021 poverty rate, the PIOJ projected that in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic, poverty would have declined in line with post-pandemic economic growth, accompanied by the steady fall in the unemployment rate to a historic, record low of 4.2 per cent.

The Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions that informs the poverty rate was last fielded by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica in 2023. It is expected that the PIOJ will be in receipt of the data for calculation of the 2023 poverty rate within a few weeks.

DR NIGEL CLARKE

Minister of Finance and the

Public Service