Ministry of Social Affairs: Deciles Do Not Determine Wealth or Poverty

Andy Kurniawan, Expert Advisor to the Minister of Social Affairs for Strategic Policy Planning and Evaluation, explained that deciles within the National Single Social and Economic Data (DTSEN) are not a direct measure of an individual’s income level or their status as rich or poor.

He stated that the decile is a system for ranking the welfare of the population nationally, divided into 10 groups based on their order of welfare levels. “A decile is not a certificate of being rich or poor. Deciles cannot be equated directly with income. You cannot say decile 1 earns this much or decile 10 earns that much,” Andy explained, as reported on Friday.

Because it uses a relative ranking system, an individual’s decile position can change even if their economic condition remains unchanged. This shift occurs when the conditions of other members of the population within the database change. For instance, if a disaster occurs in Sumatra causing many people to fall into poverty, an individual’s decile will automatically rise. This is because when the national ranking is recalculated, as some people move down, others must move up.

Andy noted that the DTSEN is updated every three months, resulting in four data versions per year. The inclusion of 12 million new data entries in DTSEN Volume 3 was identified as the primary factor causing significant changes in decile rankings. “These 12 million new entries are the source of the update in volume three. This update caused the fluctuations in deciles to feel very significant. This is being directly evaluated by BPS (Statistics Indonesia), and we are addressing specific cases reported by the public,” said Andy.

Furthermore, Andy emphasised that a decile is not the sole criterion for determining social assistance recipients. The decile serves only as a priority instrument when the number of potential recipients exceeds the available quota. “For example, if there are 10 people in a room entitled to assistance, but the government only has funds for 5, the decile functions to select those 5. Those in decile 1 are a higher priority than those in decile 4, and decile 4 is a higher priority than decile 5. That is how priority is determined,” he explained.

He added that every social assistance programme has different recipient criteria. Therefore, being in a priority decile does not guarantee receiving assistance if the specific programme’s requirements are not met.

Andy also addressed the growing public perception that an increase in decile automatically implies someone has become wealthier and will lose social assistance. “The idea that if a decile rises, it means one has become richer, and therefore assistance is lost, is entirely incorrect. There is also a perception that if assistance disappears, it is because it has been revoked or diverted to other programmes. This is not true. The total amount of social assistance remains the same or even increases. The reason some eligible people do not receive assistance is simply that the quota is limited,” he clarified.

Following the findings of significant decile changes in DTSEN Volume 3, BPS has released DTSEN Volume 3.1 to rectify the ranking results, which were deemed unstable. The Ministry of Social Affairs has urged citizens who feel their data is inaccurate to perform updates through village or sub-district governments, Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH) facilitators, local governments, or via the Cek Bansos application and official government complaint channels.