The percentage of poor people in Indonesia continues to decline. The combination of economic and social protection policy interventions has yielded good results. The Central Statistical Agency released the poverty rate for the March 2023 calculation period at 9.36% or 25.90 million people.

The poverty rate announced today by the BPS is lower compared to the period of September 2022 which was 9.57% (26.36 million people) and compared to March 2022 which was 9.54% ( 26.16 million people).

“The evolution of the level and number of poor people shows a downward trend. Therefore, the momentum aimed at improving the well-being of the population must be managed and accelerated,” said the executive director of the Institute. Megawati, Dr. Arif Budimanta in a written statement in Jakarta, Monday (7/17/2023).

According to him, President Jokowi’s emphasis on eradicating extreme poverty by 2024 will also have more or less of an effect on reducing the poverty rate in general, because all the households targeted by the program extreme poverty are families who fall into the category of the poor. .

According to a study by the World Bank, the rate of extreme poverty has dropped considerably to 1.5%.

The reduction in the poverty rate could be faster if Indonesia could strictly control the rate of inflation, especially food inflation, which accounted for 74.21% in determining the poverty line.

“For this reason, in the future, various potential fluctuations in food prices, such as the impact of climate change, the existence of El Nino and various factors that affect food availability and prices, must be properly mitigated,” he explained.

In addition, job creation and a business climate conducive to increasing the income of people (income earners) are also an integral part of efforts to reduce the number and level of poverty in Indonesia.

The poverty rate in March 2023 has not returned to pre-pandemic levels (September 2019 at 9.22%), especially for poverty conditions in urban areas, so the current downward trend should be further strengthened by the collaboration and convergence of the various existing programs both within ministries/institutions, local governments, state enterprises, private companies and other institutions.