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Santo Domingo.- The Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development reported a significant reduction in the general monetary poverty rate, which stood at 20.8% in the third quarter of 2024. This represents a year-on-year drop of 3.6 percentage points (pp) and a drop of 6.72 pp compared to the pre-pandemic period of 2019.
The “Quarterly Bulletin of Monetary Poverty in the Dominican Republic” highlights notable decreases in several demographic groups. Urban poverty fell 4.0 pp, from 24.1% to 20.1%, while rural poverty decreased 1.16 pp, to 24.7%. Gender-specific data also showed reductions: poverty among women decreased by 3.1 percentage points to 22.6% and among men by 4.1 percentage points to 18.9%. However, the poverty gap between women and men widened slightly, going from 2.7 percentage points in 2023 to 3.7 percentage points in 2024.
The report attributes the overall reduction in monetary poverty primarily to a 6.3 percentage point increase in nominal per capita income among Dominican households. However, inflation and the dynamics of income distribution offset part of this progress, increasing poverty by 1.6 pp and 1.1 pp, respectively.