Poverty rate is still high

Poverty rate is still high

JAKARTA (JP): Over 27.6 percent of Jakarta families live below the poverty line, an official of the city administration said yesterday.

Ritola Tasmaya, head of the Jakarta office of the Family Planning Coordinating Board, said that a survey conducted earlier this year showed that 354,476 families, or 27.64 percent of all the families in Jakarta, were living in poverty.

Families categorized as below the poverty line are those, Ritola said, who cannot afford to meet their basic needs.

"One of the indicators that a family is still living below the poverty line is the condition of the floor in its house and the house's total space," he said.

"Their floor still consists of dry earth, while the space for each family member is below the minimum requirement of eight square meters," he said.

Ritola said many large Jakarta families live in houses with a total area of less than 20 square meters.

In a related development vice governor of welfare affairs R.S. Museno said that there are still many population problems with all their negative aspects, which need attention. One of them is the control over the influx of unskilled newcomers into the city. (31)