This handicapped man begs on the sidewalk on King Street, Kingston. Despite appearances, consumption levels are above tha national average for parishes. - RICARDO MAKYN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
POVERTY WAS cut in 12 parishes, between 1992 and 2002, according to 2002 Survey of Living Conditions Parish Report.
The incidence of residents living below the poverty line was cut from 35.2 per cent to 19.7 per cent across the island. The biggest gains were in the western parishes while Kingston and St. Catherine resisted the improvement trend.
The incidence of poverty declined by more than a half in the parishes of Westmoreland, St. Elizabeth and Hanover, the Planning Institute of Jamaica report stated.
In Kingston, poverty increased marginally, however. In St. Ann the level held steady at 37 per cent, which was the highest in the island.
HEAVY RAINS
The level in St Ann had improved to 22.5 per cent up to 1998 but the survey results in 2002 were heavily impacted by heavy rains as well as the September 11 attacks in the United States which caused a massive fallout in tourism.
"The parish that is the poorest is the one that was worst affected by the 9.11 attacks," said Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) Director General, Dr. Wesley Hughes. He was speaking at a PIOJ press briefing to mark the institution's 50th anniversary.
St. Ann is divided into a moderately prosperous coastal tourist zone and an inner mainly agricultural zone where some mining takes place, he said. Thus both sections of the parish were affected by the conditions.
DROUGHT
St. Mary, which had previously been identified as the island's poorest parish in the 1992 report, had been heavily impacted by drought when the earlier report was done, he said. Production of all of St. Mary's crops had been affected by the drought.
At 6.2 per cent, St. Catherine was the parish with the lowest level of poverty in 2002.
Residents of St. Andrew had the highest level of consumption in the island in 2002, standing 50 per cent above the national average. But the parish had a 14.9 per cent poverty level, suggesting that St. Catherine had a more even division of consumption.
Apart from St. Andrew, the parishes of St. James, St. Catherine and Kingston also had consumption levels above the national average for the parishes.
