In this 2012 Gleaner file photo, an old man begs by the roadside. Jamaica’s poverty rate rose in 2015, the most recent period surveyed by STATIN, according to a newly released report.

The prevalence of poverty in Jamaica, at 21.2 per cent, has reached its second-highest level in almost two decades, according to the 2015 survey of living conditions, the latest such study conducted by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN).

The poverty rate was estimated at 20 per cent in the previous survey in 2014 and is second only to the 24.6 per cent recorded in 2013.

It means that about 593,600 persons among Jamaica’s 2.8 million population have been classified as being at the poverty line based on household consumption expenditure.

According to the survey tabled in Parliament at the end of September, Jamaica’s adult equivalent poverty line increased by 3.7 per cent to $175,297. That increase represents the increased cost of maintaining a minimum standard of living and is the smallest increase since the beginning of nationally measured poverty rates in Jamaica.

The report said that that increase was due to the level of inflation in 2015, which was the lowest recorded since 1967. For the reference family of five, the adult equivalency poverty line was $662,530.

The authors of the report point out that while the 3.7 per cent increase is equivalent to the 3.7 per cent rate of inflation published by STATIN in 2015, the rate of inflation used to inflate the poverty line is usually different due to a difference in calculation.

Unlike the rate published by STATIN, the one used to inflate the poverty line is calculated as the per cent difference between the 2014 and 2015 consumer price index weighted for the month in which the survey is conducted.

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