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A report from Nakinskie Robinson, ending with developmental economist Sandré Rhoden
The newly released 2025 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index NPR report has indicated that in 2023, nearly 79,000 Jamaicans or 2.8% of the population were trapped in multidimensional poverty.
The figure accounts for Jamaicans enduring deprivation in health, education and basic living standards.
The country boasted a record low poverty rate of 8.2% in 2023, down from 16.7% in 2021.
Multidimensional poverty measures of poverty beyond income, capturing deprivations in multiple areas of life that affect citizens' well-being.
It establishes that poverty is not based solely on lacking money, but involves deficits in health, education, living standards and other critical dimensions.
The concept aims to provide a fuller picture of how poverty impacts people's lives by assessing overlapping disadvantages.
The report, Overlapping Hardships of Poverty and Climate Hazard, produced through the United Nations Development Programme and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, also revealed that an additional 5% or 142,000 Jamaicans are classified as vulnerable to multidimensional poverty.
The report said the intensity of deprivations in Jamaica, which is the average deprivation score among people living in multidimensional poverty, is 38.9%.
Additionally, it said the MPI value, which is the share of the population that is multidimensionally poor, adjusted by the intensity of the deprivations, is 0.011.
In comparison, Dominican Republic has an MPI value of 0.09 and Trinidad and Tobago, 0.002.
Of the 79,000 Jamaicans experiencing multidimensional poverty, 52.2% suffered deprivation in health, 20.9% in education and 26.9% in standard of living.
The report looks at access to health care, nutrition and child mortality for health, years of schooling and school attendance for education, and access to clean water, sanitation, electricity housing and cooking fuel for standard of living.
Other factors may include employment, security, social inclusion or environmental conditions.
The report says the incidence of multidimensional poverty, at 2.8%, is 1.4% points higher than the incidence of monetary poverty at 1.4%.
It says this implies that individuals living above the monetary poverty line may still suffer deprivations in health, education and or standard of living. Added to that, it noted that 0.2% of the Jamaican population is living in severe multidimensional poverty.
Development Economist Sandré Rhoden says a holistic look is needed of the issues that affect marginalised Jamaicans.
Mr. Rhoden says while efforts are being made to respond to the needs of the poor through the increase in the national minimum wage and the reduction in the cost of electricity, the relief will be temporary if other factors impede the impact of the interventions.
"You still have to look at what the entire system is, what the social protection system is, what institutions need to strengthen and how do we ensure that education and training get to all these households that are affected on this index," he noted.
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