AMMAN - In 2008, 13.3 per cent of Jordanians were living under the poverty line, compared with 13 per cent in 2006, according to a study conducted by the Department of Statistics (DoS).
The latest findings on poverty, presented yesterday during a press conference, also showed that the absolute poverty line (food and non-food poverty) amounted to JD3,876 annually, or JD323 monthly, for the average family (5.7), while the abject poverty line (food poverty) for the same average family size stood at JD138.7 monthly.
"These figures take into consideration that the food poverty line amounted to JD292 annually, which is JD24.3 monthly," DoS Director General Haidar Freihat noted.
Economist Jawad Anani described these figures as "reasonable", taking into account that abject poverty is defined globally as living on $1 a day and absolute poverty at $3 a day.
"This means that poverty in Jordan is defined by those who live on less than $3.5 a day, which is very reasonable," he told The Jordan Times in a phone interview yesterday.
However, economist Yusuf Mansur said the poverty line rate is "deceptive" and "misleading", explaining that it fails to measure the actual number of poor people living just above the poverty line.
"There is no clear definition of poverty in Jordan we do not know if the number of poor citizens increased or decreased, and the poverty line shows us nothing in this regard," he told The Jordan Times, explaining that if the poverty line stood at JD46 monthly, those earning JD50 per month would be considered above the poverty line according to the poverty line rate.
"And this is not accurate because even those who earn JD50 are still poor and struggle exactly as the JD46 earners do," he noted, calling for studies that can identify what the definition of poor is and measure the number of poor citizens in the Kingdom.
The DoS figures also indicated that the number of poverty pockets increased from 22 in 2006 to 32 in 2008.
"A total of 18 areas continued to be identified as poverty pockets during the 2006-2008 period, while four regions graduated," Freihat said during the press conference, identifying them as Umm Rassas, Kufranja, Arajan and Mujib.
He added that 14 new areas were designated as poverty pockets during the period in question, explaining that the term is applied to areas where 25 per cent or more of the total residents live under the poverty line. Freihat noted that although the number of poverty pockets increased by 44 per cent, the poor residents of these areas only constitute about 17.5 per cent of the total number of the poor in Jordan: 136,000 out of 781,000 people.
According to the DoS figures, the number of people below the abject poverty line went down to 15,000 (1.9 per cent of all poor citizens in the Kingdom) in 2008, compared with 32,000 (4.5 per cent of the total poor) in 2006.
These numbers indicate that Jordan has succeeded in meeting the first of the Millennium Development Goals, which is to halve the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day, seven years ahead of the target date of 2015, the study said.
"This can be attributed to several projects implemented by the government in a number of fields, including housing, employment and health, in addition to foreign assistance extended during this period," Anani highlighted.
As for the distribution of poverty across the Kingdom, the study showed that the highest poverty rate was in Mafraq Governorate (31.9 per cent), followed by Maan (24.2 per cent) and Tafileh (21.1 per cent).
The lowest poverty rate was recorded in Amman (8.3 per cent), followed by Zarqa (11.2 per cent) and Aqaba (11.8 per cent).
The study also revealed that 57 per cent of citizens living below the poverty line were concentrated in the three most densely populated governorates: Amman, Irbid and Zarqa.
Average household spending on food in 2008 went down by 2.6 per cent compared to 2006, while spending on other commodities decreased by 8.2 per cent, the DoS figures indicated.
Meanwhile, the average annual income for an average-sized family stood at JD6,166, a 0.9 per cent decrease compared to 2006, when the annual income stood at JD6,220.
On the other hand, the poorest segment of society's share of the Kingdom's total income increased from 7.7 per cent in 2006 to 11.2 per cent in 2008.
The figures indicated that the average family size increased to reach 7.6 among the poor compared to 4.2 among the wealthy.
The study, conducted in cooperation with the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, also addressed the impact of the government's direct intervention to combat poverty in 2008, noting that without National Aid Fund assistance, the poverty rate would have topped 13.9 per cent.
"The methodology used for the study relied on the Actual Food Consumption patterns adopted by the World Bank, in addition to other international standards that best measure the indicators of poverty," said Freihat, stressing that the study was conducted without the help of any external body and that the figures are all "Jordanian".
"A total of 200 DoS cadres carried out field studies over a one-year period the report relied 100 per cent on descriptive analysis," he underlined, noting that the World Bank has assessed the study to ensure it complies with international standards.
By Laila Azzeh
© Jordan Times 2010
