Understanding Poverty Data

Jambi Province's poverty rate is almost close to conditions before the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on the results of the latest poverty data release conducted by the Central Statistics Agency of Jambi Province on August 1, 2022, it shows a decrease in the poverty rate in March 2022 compared to September 2021, from 7.67 percent to 7.62 percent, or a decrease of 0.05 percent. points. The latest data is not much different from the conditions in March 2019 (before the Covid-19 pandemic) which was 7.60 percent. Since the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the poverty rate has experienced an upward trend, especially at the beginning of the pandemic. In March 2020 poverty began to increase, after the previous four years (2016-2019) experienced a downward trend. The highest poverty peak occurred in March 2021 which reached 8.09 percent, even though since September 2017 the poverty rate has never been above 8 percent. Slowly the poverty rate has decreased again. Since September 2021, it has continued to decline, although the rate of decline differs between periods. In September 2021 the poverty rate decreased by 0.42 percentage points, but in March 2022 it was only 0.05 percentage points.

Poverty standards

A person is said to be poor if he does not meet the poverty standards that have been set. Many poverty criteria are used in various countries, ranging from income, housing conditions, to expenditure. There are even those who use a combination of several dimensions of life or better known as multidimensional poverty. For Indonesia, the poverty standard used is the level of expenditure per capita which is the conversion of the minimum need for food and non-food consumed or used in daily life. The minimum food requirement is calculated based on the minimum calorie (energy) requirement to be able to carry out normal activities in daily life, which is 2,100 kilocalories per day. The energy is obtained from food consumption which is then calculated for a month's expenditure value. Meanwhile, the minimum non-food needs are the sum of the minimum needs of selected non-food commodities which include housing, clothing, education, and health. The combination of the minimum value for food and non-food needs is called the poverty line (GK). This value becomes the lower limit (cut off) to categorize someone as poor or not. Residents who have a per capita expenditure value below the Poverty Line, then that person is included as a poor person. Thus, the value of the poverty line is a conversion of the value of expenditure from food and non-food.

When a person's consumption turns out to be less than 2,100 kilocalories in a day, that person does not necessarily belong to the poor. It could be that they are less than 2,100 kcal calories but in fact the total expenditure is more than the poverty line, meaning that the person consumes a lot of commodities with low calories or even no calories but high prices. Once again, the concept of using caloric energy and minimum non-food requirements is a way to obtain a cut-off value for the poverty line, which is a standard poverty criterion that is widely used in various countries, including Indonesia.

Poverty Counting Data Source

The National Socio-Economic Survey (Susenas) is the source of data for calculating poverty levels.

As previously explained, the calculation of the poverty line requires consumption and expenditure data for both food and non-food commodities, which data are obtained from Susenas. Susenas is one of the surveys conducted annually by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) in March and September. Therefore, the poverty data also follows the survey period, namely the March and September poverty data. Community participation in Susenas will certainly have a major impact on the quality of the poverty data produced. The answer from the community as Susenas respondents is expected to be honest and open so that it will describe the socio-economic conditions, including the current poverty in an area.

Macro Indicators Vs Individual Data

The question that often arises is whether the address of the poor person can be known or even his name. To answer this, we must first understand what is called macro and micro poverty data. Macro poverty data is poverty data whose calculations are obtained through a macro approach based on the concept of the ability to meet basic needs (basic need approach) using sample data instead of census data, so that the results are estimates. This data is useful for planning and evaluating poverty programs with geographic targets but cannot show who and where the addresses of the poor (targets) are, so they are not operational for aid distribution and social protection programs. Meanwhile, micro poverty data is poverty data whose data collection is carried out in a census, not a sample. Because the data collection was carried out by means of a census, data was obtained about who and where the addresses of the poor people were so that they were operational for the distribution of direct assistance and social protection programs. Based on these two types of data, it is clear that the data normally released by BPS is macro poverty data because it is sourced from the national socio-economic survey data (Susenas). Meanwhile, the data released by the Ministry of Social Affairs in the form of Integrated Data on Social Welfare (DTKS) is micro poverty data that is commonly used for the target of social assistance and protection programs. Thus, when we read poverty data, we must first understand what type of data we are reading, so that there is no misunderstanding in interpreting poverty data.