Davao Region family poverty falls to 5.5% in 2025, lowest in Mindanao, PSA says

Poverty among families in Davao Region dropped to 5.5% in 2025, the lowest rate among Mindanao regions, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported on Tuesday, according to Mindanao Times.

The figure means roughly 55 of every 1,000 families in the region earned less than what is needed to cover minimum basic food and non-food needs. It is down from 11.3% in 2023. Baby Jean Alid, officer-in-charge of PSA XI, said at a forum at the Grand Regal Hotel that the number of poor families fell to 82,250 from about 165,000 two years earlier.

Alid attributed the decline mainly to incomes of low-income households growing faster than the cost of basic goods. The PSA said income among families in the lowest decile, where poverty is concentrated, rose 33% in 2025. That growth outpaced price increases and "brought the poverty incidence down by 5.8 percentage points," Alid said.

The average poverty threshold for a family of five was P13,908 a month in 2025, up 5.9% from 2023. The food threshold was P9,686 a month.

By population, poverty incidence fell to 8.1% from 16% in 2023, with about 447,670 residents considered poor compared with 884,830 in 2023. Subsistence incidence among families, or those unable to afford even basic food, stood at 0.8%, below the national estimate of 1.2%. Food-poor families numbered 11,940, down from 42,660 in 2023.

Among provinces and cities, Davao Oriental had the highest family poverty incidence at 12.1%, though this was down from 29.1% in 2023. It was followed by Davao Occidental at 10.9%, Davao del Sur at 7.6% excluding Davao City, Davao City at 4.5%, Davao del Norte at 2.9%, and Davao de Oro at 2.8%. Including Davao City, Davao del Sur's rate was 5.3%.

Davao City, however, recorded the region's highest subsistence incidence among families at 1.1%.

The PSA surveyed 9,453 families for the 2025 data, with fieldwork conducted over 21 days starting July 8, 2025, and another 21 days starting Jan. 8, 2026.