Poverty, inequality rates stagnant

The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) announced Monday that the poverty rate and inequality rate or Gini ratio were stagnant from September 2016 to March 2017 as a result of government spending not reaching a level that could offset inflation.

The poverty rate in March hit 10.64 percent, down 0.06 point from 10.7 percent in September 2016, while the Gini ratio was 0.393, down only 0.001 point from September last year.

The Gini ratio is a measure of inequality in which zero represents complete equality and one represents complete inequality.

“This means there has been almost no change in spending gap among the population during the period,” BPS head Suhariyanto announced at a media conference on Monday.

BPS deputy head for social statistics Sairi Hasbullah added that infrastructure development had increased government spending but not at the same rate as inflation at 2.24 percent in the same period.

“The point now is how to accelerate public spending. That’s the task of our regulators,” he said. (bbn)