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“The improvement can be attributed in part to the increase in the number of people receiving social payments, such as old-age pensions and the child support grant,” said researcher at the SA Institute of Race Relations, Georgina Alexander.

In 2001, some 11% of South Africans fell into the category with the lowest living standards. This had improved to one percent in 2011.

“In the same period, the proportion of people with the highest living standards increased from 5% to 6%,” Alexander said.

The trends are captured via the Living Standards Measures (LSMs), a marketing tool designed by the SA Advertising Research Foundation.  

LSM 1 is the poorest category and LSM 10 the highest.

In 2001, the greatest proportion of adults — 14% — were classified as being in LSM 3.

This proportion dropped to 6% in 2011.

Last year, the greatest proportion of adults were grouped in LSM 6 — at 22%.

“Over the last decade there has been a general migration from the bottom three (1-3) to the middle four (4-7) LSMs, showing a general increase in living standards,” Alexander said.

Government social grants had helped.

The number of recipients of the child grant increased by 1,200 percent between 2001 and 2010/11.  

In 2001, around 8% of South Africans were beneficiaries of grants. This increased to 29% in 2010/11 and accounted for 10% of government expenditure.

According to the Institute, LSMs cut across race, sex, age and other variables to categorise people according to their living standards. People are grouped according to objective criteria, such as whether they are urbanised, own motor vehicles or major appliances, or have running water or a flush toilet in or outside the house. Income is not used to determine a person’s LSM.

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Mon May 20 07:12:51 SAST 2013 ::

Aug 28, 2012

RobinH

Still far too many, though. And far too many politicians getting fatter by the minute. Let us not allow such figures to let us relax. It is an advance, certainly, but not nearly good enough.
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Aug 28, 2012

MommaC

So why do we have more squatter camps and beggars?

Good to hear we are going in the right direction but it is a little hard to see.
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Aug 28, 2012

McKena

This is just Mangaung propaganda .
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Aug 28, 2012

hulas

Haikhona this researchers are often inaccurate and misleading...Majority of our black people are poor and suffering.The anc government successfully created a grants dependency;in that way they are guaranteed votes from young girls who opt for R200 government grant against education,interdependency and R200 000 pay cheque.
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Aug 28, 2012

Dandan

is this an insult or what when people are slaughtered for better income
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Aug 28, 2012

McKena

The ANC is playing with its own black poeple. Go to Klieptown, Alex, Diepslot then you tell me about these LSM's. The LSM there is minus 6. As I have said , this is just Propaganda to rally votes and aproval ratings
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Aug 28, 2012

Hosh6

We heading in the right direction yes...there is still a lot more to be done.
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Aug 28, 2012

BRAINLOT

@MommaC
Dependancy syndrome. I gave a beggar bread he threw it back at and asked me what was he supposed to do with bread only, some of them are cheeky you offer them a job they tell you that they make more money by just begging. If we identified individuals within poor families provided them with neccessary skills and support, these individuals would be able to break this cycle of dependency. These social grants would put our limited resources under pressure
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Aug 28, 2012

truthhurt

Bull $hit!

We are poorer than ever before.
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Aug 28, 2012

Daddylevi1*

this is just pure nonsense, white people are trying by all means to protect their wealth, selfishness, and hatred behind this stats. everytime they release this stats they want us to believe that things are okay, and hell no things are not ok. we cannot come and say these "state-dependency" syndrome that the ANC led government came up with has helped reduce poverty. all these grants are nothing compared to the living expenses, food is expesive, clothes, electricity, water, education, and then they come with this nonsense that things are better, yet the majority of those receving grants are black people whereas white people are still at the top of the economic chain. i dont buy this story and will never do, we cant claim that people are free when the socio-economic statuses favour the minority, when you have a family of 10 staying in a shack or a 2 bedroom RDP house, when kids cant go to school when its raining or cold because they dont have transport or warm clothes, when parents see suicide as solution to avoid poverty, when young peole with qualifications are at home because they cant find jobs. this is an insult to the freedom that our parents fought hard for, a belittlement to the dignity of life.
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