The Prime Minister has issued a multi-dimensional poverty index (MPI) for the 2016-2020 period that identifies indicators to define poor, near-poor and middle-income households in urban and rural areas.

The MPI measures people’s income, as well as their lack of access to basic public services such as healthcare, education, housing, clean water, sanitation and information.

The lack of access to basic public services is determined by 10 indicators: access to healthcare services, social insurance, education attainment of adults, schooling status of children, housing quality, average floor area per person, water supply, condition of toilets/latrines, use of telecommunication services and devices owned for information access.

Accordingly, households are classified as “poor” if they have a monthly income per person of 1,000,000 VND or less in rural areas and 1,300,000 VND or less in urban areas. They must also score as deprived in three or more public service access indicators.

“Near poor” are those who have a monthly income per person of 700,000 – 1,000,000 VND in rural areas or 900,000 – 1,300,000 VND in urban areas and score as deprived in three or less indicators.

Middle-income families are those who have a monthly per capita income of 1,000,000 – 1,500,000 VND in rural areas or 1,300,000 – 1,950,000 VND in urban areas.

The MPI will be used to determine those eligible for Government poverty reduction and social welfare policies.

VNA