The reduction in poverty across the country has been unequal. Those living on the border with Haiti are the least benefited by development. On the border, Enriquillo and El Valle are the municipalities with the highest poverty rate, at 45.3 % and 42.4 %, respectively.
The official report, “Bulletin of Official Statistics of Financial Poverty”, issued by the Ministry of the Economy and the National Statistics Office (ONE) explains that the national average was 22.8% in 2018, which means that 2,335,921 people were living in poverty in the Dominican Republic as a whole at the end of 2018, of these 296,591 were destitute. Economy Minister Isidoro Santana said that the southwest region needs the most attention from public policies.
The definition of poverty, used by the government to calculate these numbers, is a family group whose income is not sufficient to cover the basic family basket.
As of the end of last year, some 7,929,358 do not qualify as needy. This number was up by 7.9% when compared to the previous year.
25 June 2019