Absolute & Relative Poverty in Indonesia Declined slightly in 2014
Relative and absolute poverty in Indonesia have declined according to the latest data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS) released on Friday (02/01). In September 2014, there were a total of 27.73 million Indonesians categorized as poor, or 10.96 percent of the total population. Both figures were down from 28.6 million people, or 11.46 percent in September last year (BPS releases data on Indonesian poverty twice per year covering the state of poverty in the months of March and September).
Indonesian Poverty and Inequality Statistics:
| 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | |
| Relative Poverty (% of population) |
17.8 | 16.6 | 15.4 | 14.2 | 13.3 | 12.5 | 11.7 | 11.5 | 11.0 |
| Absolute Poverty (in millions) |
39 | 37 | 35 | 33 | 31 | 30 | 29 | 29 | 28 |
| Gini Coefficient/ Gini Ratio |
- | 0.35 | 0.35 | 0.37 | 0.38 | 0.41 | 0.41 | 0.41 | - |
Sources: World Bank and Statistics Indonesia
After the Asian Financial Crisis managed to push the country’s poverty rate up to 20 percent in late 1998, Indonesia has shown a steady decline in national poverty. However, as the country has been experiencing slowing economic growth since 2011 (in combination with accelerated inflation in 2013 and 2014 due to two subsidized fuel price hikes), the poverty rate has had difficulty to continue its rapidly declining trend. Suryamin, Head of BPS, commented that despite various government programs, the number of poor Indonesians has only declined slightly since 2010. He added that the government should enhance monitoring and act to avert high volatility in vital staple foods (such as rice, eggs, noodles, sugar, and chicken meat) as well as inflation as the poorer segments are particularly vulnerable to higher commodity prices (poor households spend a significant portion of their disposable incomes on rice). Social assistance from the government is important, especially now as inflation has accelerated due to the subsidized fuel price hike in November 2014. Inflation accelerated to 8.36 percent year-on-year (y/y) in December 2014.
For a detailed analysis of poverty in Indonesia, click here