Bad News From Jakarta, The Poverty Rate In The Capital Increases The Cause Is Considered Because Of COVID-19

Illustration (Angga Nugraha/VOI)

JAKARTA - The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) of DKI Jakarta Province noted that the poverty rate was increasing as of March 2021.

In response to this, Deputy Governor of DKI Jakarta Ahmad Riza Patria considered the increase in poverty in the Capital City to be caused by many residents whose economy was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The consequences are clear, definitely because of COVID-19. The impact of increasing unemployment and poverty is there. However, we will all try to overcome it with existing programs," said Riza at City Hall, Central Jakarta, Thursday, July 15.

In his presentation, the Head of the DKI Jakarta BPS, Buyung Airlangga, said that there was an increase in the poverty rate from August 2020 by 4.69 percent, then in March by 4.72 percent.

"There was an increase of approximately 0.03 percent. If we describe, this 4.72 percent figure is approximately equivalent to nearly 501,000 people experiencing poverty," said Buyung in a virtual press conference.

However, Buyung said that the increase in the poverty rate is now more gentle than the period from March 2020 to August 2020. The increase in the poverty rate at that time reached 0.19 percent.

Buyung explained the factors that caused the poverty rate to increase but not higher than the previous period.

He said, the increasing poverty rate in March-August 2020 was caused by massive layoffs due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of last August 2020, there were 511,000 workers who lost their jobs.

Buyung continued, there was a reduction in the unemployment rate in March 2021. As many as 250 thousand workers returned to the industry.

Then, why is the poverty rate still increasing even though it is only 0.03 percent? Buyung explained that there is still a gap of more than 250 thousand workers who have not yet found work due to being laid off since last August.

"This is what in our opinion, in the labor absorption data, it has been shown that there was an increase in the workforce of almost 250 thousand in February, perhaps this is part of the slow pace of poverty in Jakarta," he explained

It is known that the poverty line in DKI Jakarta currently reaches Rp. 697,638 per capita per month. This figure is up 2.09 percent compared to the last September 2020 period.

The composition for consumption of poor households is 68.71 percent for food consisting of rice, cigarettes, chicken meat, instant noodles and so on. Meanwhile, non-food consumption was 31.29 percent for housing, electricity, gasoline, education and so on.

Overall, the status of the population in Jakarta who are not categorized as poor is 71.94 percent, 16.68 percent is categorized as vulnerable to poor, 6.65 percent is in the near-poor category.

The rest, the category of poor people, which amounted to 4.72 percent. This category is divided into two, consisting of 3.73 percent of people categorized as poor and 0.99 percent of very poor.