Poverty in Thailand has been halved says govt

The Ministry of Interior insists that 1.9 million poor families have been rescued by the Thai government and that the state has halved the poverty problem in Thailand.

The Permanent Secretary of the Interior Ministry, Suttipong Juncharoen, said poverty is a problem residents have to face and that the government cannot solve the problem by itself.

Suttipong announced that the government wants to improve the nation’s poverty problem and does not want to leave any family behind. To prove this the ministry launched an online platform called ThaiQM to conduct a survey on poverty solutions and human resource development.

The result revealed that 3,810,466 families in Thailand live below the national poverty line and more than 12 million problems were reported.

Suttipong said the provincial governors of each province also acknowledged every problem reported via the online survey. After finding that poverty really exists the problems would be reported to the relevant departments to find a solution.

For example, if there is a problem people cannot read and write, the issue will be tackled by the relevant department. In this case the provincial education department.

Suttipong revealed that each province had their key performance indicators that it had to pursue.

About 1.9 million poor families, or 50.09% of the total amount, have been helped and supported by the government.

Khaosod reported the latest survey update on October 24. It revealed more than 1.9 million poor families, which was 50.09% of the total, had already been helped and supported by the government. Furthermore, more than 5.1 million reported problems, which was 55.48% of the total number, had been solved.

Last year, the deputy Finance Minister predicted the number of Thais receiving state welfare was expected to increase by over 1 million, to about 15 million people. Based on Worldometer statistics, this means that next year over 21% of the population will be on welfare or around 1 in 5 people in the country.