Poverty line shift: This is how much SA’s poor need to survive in 2024

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) has released the updated national poverty lines for 2024, which shows how much a person would need to have to survive.

The national poverty lines change annually due to the changes in the cost of living.

Stats SA says it makes use of the cost-of-basic-needs approach, which links welfare to the consumption of goods and services.

“The national poverty lines were established to increase knowledge production for policy development and reform around poverty reduction and eradication, amongst other reasons.”

There are three lines that make up the national poverty line – the food poverty line, the lower-bound poverty line, and the upper-bound poverty line.

R796 per person

The published statistics show that the food poverty line is at R796 per person per month. It is an increase from R760 in 2023. This is the amount of money a person will need to afford the minimum required daily energy intake. However, the food poverty line is commonly referred to as the “extreme” poverty line.

“Costing of the reference food basket was computed using information on item-specific consumption expenditure levels, household composition, and price data from the Consumer Price Index,” reads the report.

Then the amount of energy (calories per 100 grams or 100 millilitres in the case of liquids) of each item in the food basket is added; the information on mean annualised consumption expenditure on each food item and information on household size; and the Consumer Price Index data.

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Bound poverty line

The lower-bound poverty line is at R1,109 per person per month, from R1,058 in 2023. This is the poverty line amount combined with the average amount derived from non-food items of households whose total expenditure is equal to the food poverty line.

The other line is the upper-bound poverty line, which is at R1,634 from 1,558 in 2023. This is the poverty line amount combined with the average amount derived from non-food items of households whose total expenditure is equal to the food poverty line.

“The lower-bound poverty line is obtained in a similar way, but with a different set of reference households. The choice of reference households in this case is based on the assumption that households whose total expenditure is close to the food poverty line generally live on ‘survival foods’ and therefore, sacrifice some basic food needs in order to meet their non-food requirements.”

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