![\"\"](\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Poverty.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe situation is most dire in Manguang (MNG) and Buffalo City (BFC) where 40.3% and 39% of households are living under R2,500 a month – followed closely by eThekwini (ETK).<\/p>\n
The City of Cape Town (CPT), meanwhile has the lowest rate of poor households (17.7%), ahead of the City of Tshwane (TSH) and the City of Johannesburg (JHB), at 25.9% and 26.8%, respectively.<\/p>\n
Access to food<\/strong><\/p>\n Further, the survey data shows that 1.2 million of these poor households describe their access to food as inadequate – including over 260,000 who describe the situation as severe.<\/p>\n This represents just under 16% of all South African households across the metros, with the City of Cape Town coming worst off in this metric, and the City of Tshwane with the lowest rate.<\/p>\n New research from the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP) found that, as of May 2019<\/a><\/strong>, a family of four would need to spend R2,524 a month on its ‘thrifty’ basket of basic foods.<\/p>\n This represents, on average, 32.3% of a household’s monthly spend, the group said. This means that a household would need to earn R7,800 a month to just feed the family – or else would have to drastically cut spending on non-food items.<\/p>\n In 2018, the BFAP noted that more than half the country’s population would not be able to afford this.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n