Poverty in the Philippines

The Municipality of Rosario, Batangas, Philippines implemented its Aksyon ng Bayan Rosario 2001 And Beyond Human and Ecological Security Plan using this concept as a core strategy through the Minimum Basic Needs Approach to Improved Quality of Life - Community-Based Information System (MBN-CBIS) prescribed by the Philippine Government. This approach helped the municipal government identify priority families and communities for intervention, as well as rationalize the allocation of its social development funds.


United States of America

In the United States, the equivalent measures are called self-sufficiency standards or living income standards. Unlike the federal poverty level (FPL), which is calculated from a single, national variable (cost of food), these models assume that different households have different needs, based on factors such as the number and age of children in the household, and the cost of housing in the particular area (usually a county) that they live in.


In keeping with the principles of basic needs, these measurements do not include any extra money for entertainment, savings, debt payment, or unusual or avoidable expenses, such as vehicle repairs. It assumes that adults will be working and pay taxes; it also includes costs of all government, charitable, and family subsidies, such as free medical care through Medicaid, free food from the USDA food stamps program or a food bank, or free childcare from a grandparent. All of these costs are ignored by the official FPL measurement, but included in a self-sufficiency standard.
Minimum expenses vary by region. For housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, and other necessary expenses, plus net taxes, a family in middle-class Warren County in northwestern Pennsylvania of one adult and two children (one preschooler, one school-aged) needed a minimum income of $30,269 to pay its own way in 2006.


Child care is the largest expense in this budget, followed by housing, taxes, and food. The same family, living in the wealthy Seattle region of Washington would need to earn $48,269 to be self-sufficient. These figures contrast sharply with the FPL for that year, which was just $16,600 for any three-person household