Spanish
The Dominican government reported today that the general monetary poverty rate stood at 15.4% in the first quarter of 2026, for a reduction of 2.6 percentage points when compared to the same period of the previous year, which was 18.1%.
This preliminary result is consistent with the economic growth dynamics observed in the same period, during which the Monthly Indicator of Economic Activity (IMAE) accumulated a variation of 4.1%, suggesting that the expansion of productive activity contributed to improving the income of the most vulnerable households.
This reduction was also influenced by the provision of the increase in sectorized and non-sectorized minimum wages that was implemented from April of last year until February 2026 for the benefit of citizens with lower purchasing power.
The data is contained in the infographic tracking the preliminary figures on monetary poverty prepared by the Ministry of Finance and Economy (MHE), duly validated by the National Statistics Office (ONE) and the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic (BCRD), the institution responsible for collecting the data.
"Labor income received during the last 12 months, between April 2025 and March 2026, showed an increase when compared to those reported between April 2024 and March 2025. This allowed the contribution of labor income to poverty reduction to reach 3.74 percentage points, thus counteracting the effect of inflation," explains the bulletin.
Furthermore, the report highlights that rural poverty remains higher than urban poverty, being 4.0 percentage points higher, given that the former is at 18.8%, while the latter is at 14.8%.
It is reminded that monetary poverty is defined as the situation of deficit that manifests itself between the income available to households and the resources required by families to acquire a normative basket of goods and services.
