As of June 2023, 27 out of every 100 Ecuadorians were in poverty, according to INEC. These people live on less than USD 3 a day.
People begging in Quito, July 25, 2023.
By June 2023, 4.9 million people were in poverty, that is, 27 out of every 100 Ecuadorians, according to the latest report from the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC).
A person is considered poor in Ecuador if they live on less than USD 3 a day, which represents barely 20% of a basic salary, which is USD 450.
A year earlier, 25 out of 100 were in that condition. However, according to the INEC, the increase is not “statistically significant.”
This means that it is within the margin of statistical error and that there was no real variation in the market, explains Juan Jarrín, an economic and data analyst at the Business Intelligence consultancy.
In turn, 10.8% of the country’s population lives in extreme poverty. In other words, close to 1.9 million people live on less than USD 1.6 a day.
The value for June does not show a variation in relation to the same month of the previous year, when it was at 10.7%.
However, by December 2022, extreme poverty stood at 8.2%. One of the reasons that could explain this is that in December there is a greater movement in the economy due to the usual consumption of the December season, with which companies create temporary jobs.
Income poverty is linked to employment. In Ecuador, barely 2.9 million people have adequate employment, that is, they work 40 hours a week and earn at least a basic salary.
Poverty in rurality
In the rural sector, 46 out of 100 people live in poverty, according to INEC data as of June 2023. For the same month last year, it was 43 out of 100.
And if it is compared with the data from December 2022, when it was at 41%, the increase is 5.4 percentage points.
“The jump is dramatic in the case of rural areas, because a deterioration in their socioeconomic conditions is more serious than in the urban sector, since families take longer to recover,” explains Byron Villacís, a researcher at the University of California.
While a change in poverty in the urban area may reflect a short-term effect, such as a drop in sales, adds Villacís.
In the urban area, poverty was at 18%, by June 2023. A year earlier, it was at 16.7%.
More uneven
The INEC also measures how unequal Ecuador’s population is, based on per capita household income. This is the Gini coefficient.
By June 2023, the Gini index was at 0.467. The closer that value is to 1, the more unequal the population is or the greater the gap between rich and poor. A year earlier, the indicator was at 0.45, according to the INEC.
