World Bank expects slower poverty drop

Poverty in the country is projected to keep falling in the coming years as the economy creates more and better-paying jobs, though the decline is expected to be slower than pre-pandemic gains, the Washington-based World Bank (WB) said.

- Ricardo M. Austria

The WB’s latest Philippines Economic Update (PEU) for December 2025, titled Growth Corridors: Pathways Out of Poverty,” projects that the national poverty rate will fall to around 12.5 percent by 2027. The WB, however, emphasized that sustaining this decline will depend on stronger job creation and real wage growth.

“More robust safety nets will also be needed along with targeted measures to mitigate climateand food-price shocks, which have increasingly undermined household welfare in recent years,” the WB added.

The WB highlighted that increasing wages, driven by workers moving from agriculture to the services sector, have played a key role in reducing poverty over the long term. It noted that by 2023, the national poverty rate had fallen to 15.5 percent from 18.1 percent in 2021, returning to levels seen before the pandemic.

“The labor market continued to strengthen in 2025, supporting household incomes despite the slowdown in growth,” the WB said.