{"id":19218,"date":"2013-03-28T15:13:03","date_gmt":"2013-03-28T07:13:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/?p=19218"},"modified":"2013-03-28T15:13:20","modified_gmt":"2013-03-28T07:13:20","slug":"poverty-and-gini-reduced-average-household-income-increased-but","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/borninmalaysia\/2013\/03\/28\/poverty-and-gini-reduced-average-household-income-increased-but\/","title":{"rendered":"Poverty and Gini reduced, average household income increased but…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good news indeed, right? I’m sure no one will be unhappy to hear that poverty is reduced. That will contribute a lot towards reducing crime and social problems (barring foreigners-linked ones).<\/p>\n

Average household income increases..definitely good news for businessmen as family should have more purchasing power. Can go for movies at cinema, buy more books, enjoy eating out with family once in a while, go on short domestic holiday (hey, maybe even overseas with Everyone Can Fly!), take up some insurance policy, send kids to tuition, renovate house…whoa the list can go on and on. Our household income increased by nearly RM1000 in 3 years (2009-2012), from RM4025 to RM5000 per month. That’s a annual growth of 7.2% it says. The urban household (with more than 2\/3 of Malaysians living in urban area) grew 6.6% per annum from RM4,705 a month in 2009 to RM5,742 in 2012, while\u00a0rural household income grew 6.4% a year from a monthly average of RM2,545 in 2009 to RM3,080 in 2012. (Questions whether its enough to buy a house is not relevant). So, how many of your got a average 7% increase in income per year? Should be a lot of us, right?<\/p>\n

And what about the Gini coefficient? Basically, the lower the value of Gini, the better it is because it portrays the inequality of wealth distribution (higher value means rich becoming richer, poor becoming poorer). We registered a drop of 0.01, from 0.441 to 0.431. So the gap between Ananda Khrishnan and myself has been reduced, well probably a miniscule amount, but still REDUCED! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

So, what is the definition of being poor? Want to check out an old article of mine about Budget 2013<\/a>? Not so old actually.<\/p>\n

Ok, let’s read the article from Star below and feel an unexplainable pleasure. Then proceed to article \u00a0that appears after that.<\/p>\n

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Malaysia more than halved its poverty statistics over the past three years, with the number of poor people now standing at less than 110,000 nationwide, said Minister in the Prime Minister\u2019s Department\u00a0Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop.<\/p>\n

He said the country\u2019s overall poverty rate dropped to 1.7% in 2012, compared to 3.8% in 2009.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this achievement, the target under the 10th Malaysia Plan to reduce overall po\u00adverty to 2% in 2015 has been achieved three years earlier.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a result of rapid economic development and the effectiveness of poverty eradication programmes carried out by the Go\u00ad\u00advernment,\u201d he said at a press conference to announce the findings of the 2012 National Household Income Study here.<\/p>\n

He said the fall in incidences of poverty happened in both urban and rural areas, with urban poverty falling to just 1% last year compared to 1.7% in 2009, while rural areas registered a significant drop from 8.4% in 2009 to just 3.4% in 2012.<\/p>\n

Sabah registered the biggest reduction in poverty from 19.7% of the population in 2009 to 8.1% three years later.<\/p>\n

The minister said all states registered a reduction in poverty rates, with marked improvements in Penang, Selangor, Malacca and the federal territories \u2013 all of which ave\u00adraged 0% hardcore poor in their areas as at 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is proof that the Federal Government\u2019s initiatives to eradicate poverty have succeeded and been of benefit to the\u00a0rakyat<\/i>\u00a0regardless of differences in political ideology,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Malaysians enjoyed an annual increase of 7.2% to their average household income over the 2009-2012 period, or a nearly a RM1,000 hike in their average monthly income from RM4,025 in 2009 to RM5,000 in 2012.<\/p>\n

Despite similar growth rates, urban household income grew at 6.6% per annum from RM4,705 a month in 2009 to RM5,742 in 2012 while rural household income went up at a rate of 6.4% a year from a monthly average of RM2,545 in 2009 to RM3,080 in 2012.<\/p>\n

Despite this, he added that Malaysia still improved on wealth distribution, having secured a lower score of 0.431 on its \u201cGini coefficient\u201d (a system to measure inequality in wealth distribution) in 2012, compared to 0.441 in 2009.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

source: http:\/\/thestar.com.my\/news\/story.asp?file=\/2013\/3\/28\/nation\/12897373&sec=nation<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

OK, so you are feeling happy and blissful already? Great! Now, let’s come down to earth a bit by reading how poverty line is calculated and what’s the current figures are:<\/p>\n

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Sesebuah isi rumah adalah dianggap sebagai miskin tegar sekiranya pendapatan bulanan isi rumah tersebut adalah\u00a0kurang daripada Paras Garis Kemiskinan (PGK) makanan<\/span><\/strong>, iaitu pendapatan yang mencukupi bagi membolehkan isi rumah tersebut memenuhi keperluan asas dari segi\u00a0nutrisi makanan yang minimum<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0yang membolehkan setiap ahlinya mempunyai tubuh badan yang sihat.<\/p>\n

PLI miskin tegar adalah diukur berdasarkan kepada komposisi demografi ahli isi rumah iaitu\u00a0bilangan isi rumah, umur dan jantina<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0bagi menentukan keperluan diet atau kalori (Keperluan Harian Diperlukan atau Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) 2004, Kementerian Kesihatan dan Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia). PLI juga mengambil kira\u00a0harga jualan semasa<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0bagi membeli keperluan harian tersebut berdasarkan lokasi mengikut\u00a0Negeri dan Strata (Bandar atau Luar Bandar)<\/span><\/strong>. PLI akan dikira berdasarkan kepada\u00a0keperluan setiap isi rumah<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0dan Indeks Harga Pengguna atau\u00a0Consumer Price Index (CPI)<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0makanan.<\/p>\n

Keperluan Kalori bagi setiap isi rumah dikira berdasarkan kepada struktur demografi setiap isi rumah seperti\u00a0umur, berat, jantina dan kadar metabolasi badan atau basal metabolic rate (BMR)<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0mengikut paras aktiviti fizikal atau physical activity level (PAL) setiap isi rumah.<\/p>\n

Sejumlah\u00a08,725 kalori setiap hari<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0adalah diperlukan (untuk 5 Orang setiap isi rumah) berdasarkan kepada 7 kategori makanan yang meliputi 13 jenis makanan iaitu :<\/p>\n