And the statistical institute of Belize also today released its Multidimensional Poverty Index - and it shows that there are fewer poor Belizeans than there were in 2021.
The Poverty Index is not just a measure of income - but it looks at the various symptoms of poverty - in four main areas: Health, education, living standards, and employment.
The 17 indicators drawn from those general headings include everything from whether a home has a "Fiya haawt" to whether it has internet.
And, based on all these indicators, the September 2023 survey found fewer poor Belizeans:
Christian Orellana, Statistician
"For the period September 2023 the incidence of multi-dimensional poverty is 26.4 percent. That means that 26.4 percent of the population is multi-dimensionally poor. A total of 103,944 persons were multi -dimensionally poor among 24,096 households."
But the metric doesn't only measure the incidence of poverty - it also measures the intensity of it. And while there may be fewer Belizeans who are poor than two years ago, their poverty is just as intense:
Christian Orellana, Statistician
"We now compare the 2023 MPI results to the 2021 MPI results. A decrease of 10 .1% was observed for the incidents. This is a result of 38 ,596 individuals among 8,902 households coming out of being multi-dimensionally poor since the 2021 pandemic landscape, notably due to decrease in the share of the population that experienced deprivations in areas such as underemployment, food insecurity, employment, and cooking fuel."
"Now, when we compare the intensity between the two years, it can be observed that the severity of poverty among the poor remains the same with very little change."
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