Stats SA survey to lay bare poverty and inequality in SA
The upcoming Income and Expenditure Survey (IES) is expected to zoom into the country's poverty and inequality challenges.
Stats SA will start gathering responses on the 2022/23 IES from next week.
The IES survey was last conducted in 2015, seven years ago.
Project Director Werner Ruch says the latest survey will rebase the poverty line.
"But for this survey, we specifically zoom in on poverty and inequality. Poverty is a very tricky creature, now the traditional way of approaching it is looking at the money metric side to try and have a poverty line to see How many people live below it and how many people live above it and that determines your poverty rate.
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"This survey collects the data that allows us to know what that line should be. So, this IES will be used for the rebasing of the poverty line. But ultimately we apply the poverty line to the data to be able to establish how many people in South Africa are poor."
According to Stats SA, at least 40% of South Africans lived below the poverty line in 2015.
But according to the National Development Plan, poverty and inequality should be eradicated by 2030.
"So, the NDP says by 2030 we have to have 0 people living below the lower bound poverty line. According to our most recent estimates which are based from 2015, the country has about 40% of people living below the poverty line."
However, the poverty line and inequality are expected to worsen due to the current economic crisis and the 2020 Covid-19 global pandemic.
