83% of Filipinos say quality of life worsened in last 12 months:SWS
Eighty three percent of Filipinos said the quality of their life worsened in the past 12 months, breaking the previous record last June 2008, according to latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey on Wednesday.
Based on their survey conducted last May 4-10, ten percent said nothing has changed, and only six percent said they life got better compared to a year ago.
“The 83 percent proportion of losers (life got worse) in May 2020 is a new peak in the 37-year series of 135 SWS surveys, breaking the previous record 62 percent losers in June 2008,” SWS said.
It added the six percent proportion of gainers or those whose life got better, is a new all-time low, breaking the previous record nine percent gainers in July 1985.
SWS said based on their survey history, net gainers have been negative very often, from 1983 onward, only 16 percent of the 135 readings were positive, while 84 percent of them were zero or negative.
“The May 2020 net gainers score of ?78 (gainers minus losers, correctly rounded), is the worst in survey history, breaking the previous record low ?50 in June 2008. It plummeted from a very high +18 in December 2019,” the survey said.
“The negative May 2020 score, however, is a break from the positive trend of the past five years. Of the 20 observations between March 2015 and December 2019, 19 were positive. Notably, this already accounts for 90 percent of all positive scores recorded by SWS,” it said.
Based on SWS classifications, “excellent” grade is applied to net gainers who scores were at +20 or more; "very high" to scores between +10 and +19; “high" to scores between +1 and +9; "fair" to scores between ?9 and net zero; "mediocre" to scores between ?19 and ?10; "low" to scores between ?29 and ?20; “very low” to scores between ?39 and 30; and “extremely low” to scores at ?40 or below.
The nationwide net gainers score of ?78 percent is the result of very low scores in all areas where the score is lowest in the Visayas at ?82 percent, followed by Mindanao at?80 percent, Metro Manila at ?77 percent, and balance Luzon at ?75 percent.
The lowest percentage of net gainers was registered among non-elementary graduates at ?89 percent, followed by elementary graduates at ?82 percent, junior high school graduates at ?78 percent, and college graduates at ?65 percent.
Also, the lowest percentage of net gainers was recorded among working-age Filipinos whose families experienced involuntary hunger, or hunger due to lack of food to eat at ?88 percent or lower than the ?75 percent among those whose families did not experience involuntary hunger
For those who have a job and are receiving full pay, the net gainers score reached ?73 percent while -81 percent for those who have a job but are not receiving full pay, -81 percent for those who never had a job, and -78 percent for those who do not have a job at present but used to have one.
The latest SWS COVID-19 mobile survey was conducted using mobile phone and computer-assisted telephone interviewing of 4,010 working-age Filipinos, aged 15 years old and above nationwide. Ella Dionisio/DMS
