Poverty programs built on a slanted foundation – i.e. statistics that don’t take inflation into account – meet the same fate.

According to the General Statistics Office, the country reduced its general poverty rate – which is calculated on the average spending per capita per month – to 16 percent in 2006 from 37.4 percent in 1998.

The figures also showed a significant decrease in the poor family poverty rate – which is based on the minimum average monthly income per capita – from 18.1 percent in 2004 to 15.5 percent in 2006 and 14.8 percent last year.

The poor family poverty rate draws the poverty line at minimum average monthly income per capita of VND260,000 (US$16.1) for urbanareas and VND200,000 ($12.4) for rural areas.

But the problem is that this line has been drawn for the entire 2006-2010 period.

The statistics office needs to adjust these poverty thresholds following inflation each year – instead of fixing the levels for a five-year period – if it wants to accurately reflect the poverty situation.

If the poverty thresholds were raised last year in line with the year’s average consumer price inflation of 8.3 percent, poverty would not have dropped to 14.8 percent.

Though 2008’s consumer price inflation will not be calculated until the year ends, the rate hit 17.61 percent over the first four months.

One of the seven points in Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s late-March plan to reinvigorate the economy amid the high inflation is the expansion of social welfare policies, including assistance for the poor, who have been hit worst by inflation.

Revising poverty thresholds is the only way to calculate comprehensive poverty statistics, and it’s the only platform that programs for the poor can be built on.

By Ngoc Minh