StatsSA shows subjective poverty fell from 34.4% to 25.7% yet official line still at 37.9% as lowered hopes mask reality.
Image for illustrative purposes. Picture: iStock
Perhaps the ANC isn’t lying when it says it has been building a better life for all the people of South Africa.
That’s at least one way to look at the latest report from Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) about poverty levels and people’s perceptions of how poor they are.
In both cases, government could interpret the number as saying things are getting better – and that “our people” (©C Ramaphosa) agree with that.
StatsSA reported yesterday that households considering themselves as poor had dropped from 34.4% in 2015, to 25.7% in a survey released this year.
That compares with the reality that the official marker of poverty – the lower-bound poverty line – shows 37.9% of South Africans are impoverished.
While that latter figure has improved from the 46.7% it was in 2015, StatsSA noted that “subjective poverty” is based on people’s perceptions of what constitutes a socially acceptable standard of living.
However, Chris Hattingh, executive director at the Centre for Risk Analysis, made a telling point about the StatsSA finding when he said: “A falling headcount rate doesn’t mean falling absolute numbers if population growth is uneven, and it says nothing about the depth of poverty for those still below the line.”
He also noted that a falling national subjective poverty rate could be a reflection of “shifting expectations, rather than improved material conditions”.
In other words, we don’t expect much out of the economy, our government, or our country in general… so we’re not that disappointed about where we are.
And that, if it is accurate, is the most worrying observation about these latest evaluations of the poverty level in our country.
If South Africans have lowered their expectations, they won’t strive for more; they won’t expect politicians to deliver more or push them to do so.
And that leads to a downward spiral of mediocrity.
