National poverty lines
There are three national poverty lines calculated by Statistics South Africa: the food poverty line, the lower-bound poverty line and the upper-bound poverty line. The food poverty line is the amount it costs to buy the minimum required energy intake for one person for a month. It is also known as the extreme poverty line. The lower-bound poverty line and upper-bound poverty lines include non-food essential items.
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The data
21 rows, 4 columns.
- date Date
- The date associated with the data entry 2006-03-01 – 2026-05-01
- food_poverty Number
- The Food Poverty Line. The amount of money (in South African Rand) an individual needs to afford the minimum required daily energy intake. Also known as the “extreme” poverty line 228 – 868
- lower_bound Number
- Lower-Bound Poverty Line which is the food poverty line plus the average amount spent on essential non-food items by households whose total expenditure equals the food poverty line. This represents households so resource-constrained that any non-food spending implies sacrificing some food intake 461 – 1457
- upper_bound Number
- The Upper-Bound Poverty Line represents The food poverty line plus the average amount spent on non-food items by households whose food expenditure equals the food poverty line 1054 – 2962
Latest rows
| date | food_poverty | lower_bound | upper_bound |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-05-01 | 868 | 1457 | 2962 |
| 2025-05-01 | 855 | 1415 | 2846 |
| 2024-05-01 | 816 | 1364 | 2764 |
| 2023-05-01 | 777 | 1300 | 2635 |
| 2022-04-01 | 680 | 1176 | 2441 |
| 2021-04-01 | 641 | 1108 | 2299 |
| 2020-04-01 | 603 | 1053 | 2199 |
| 2019-04-01 | 579 | 1021 | 2148 |
| 2018-04-01 | 562 | 985 | 2066 |
| 2017-04-01 | 544 | 951 | 1989 |
| 2016-04-01 | 510 | 900 | 1896 |
| 2015-04-01 | 454 | 827 | 1777 |
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