Getting richer, it is good news, I guess if not for the war, that would have been even steeper climb. How is that plotted against Dollar conversion value? Thank you for the info and the pointer to LBO article.
These info interests me, lately, ever since I got offered ridiculous pay from a University over there :) So I am interested in the value too.

You’re really pushing the graphs out these days aren’t you?

If the citizens of a developing country with reasonable growth haven’t become richer, there would be very serious problems indeed. A civil war will do that, of course. However, reading your father’s article, the figures of 8.9% cf 26.1% in poverty may not be accurate, as he carefully points out himself. In fact, taking the main measure of poverty (food expenditure), it would seem that poverty is on the increase – a high increase in expenditure on food in the past few years to 2010 combined with a modest increase in expenditure on protein.

That certainly is my personal and anecdotal experience. I have little faith in govt figures for inflation, but looking at my own receipts for food and domestic goods, there has been well over 10% price inflation for most items in the past year alone. I doubt wages have caught up. I have no idea how most poor people survive to be honest.

Add to this some other key factors. Unless reliable inflation is taken into account, the graph you show may be quite misleading. Is it inflation linked? I doubt it from the numbers. If one Rupee is worth less now than it was 10, 20 or 30 years ago (self-evident), then one would need to know the inflationary effect to judge whether there is a real-terms increase in wealth. Beyond that, there are many other factors to consider, such as the huge reduction in the cost of ‘white goods’ and additional effects of reduced import taxes over the years, which might account for some of the increase in such household items without inferring a consequent increase in wealth (though living standards must have improved). Then there’s the massive increase in the wealth of the wealthy, and rich ex-pats returning home post-conflict (which will skew the stats significantly when one considers how poor the poor are).

I hope it’s true. The poorest people in Sri Lanka deserve better.

It’s generally very difficult to estimate income, especially among poor households. One reason is that people with irregular income (most the poor) simply do not know the answer to the question how much did you earn last month. The other is that people may have all sorts of reasons to understate or overstate.

One workaround is the SEC classification commonly used by market research firms (and in our surveys). Here you simply ask about the chief wage earner’s highest educational qualification and occupation and read off the SEC classification, which is correlated to income.

I was using another workaround, which is using household assets as a proxy for income. Quite solid, according to the studies that have been done.

Even if you have doubts about the provincial breakdowns, I am sure the 20 year chart showing how much asset ownership has increased should be persuasive. I’ve been playing the transport numbers. Again, a stunning story. Three-wheelers overtook cars/vans in 2007. Motorcycle ownership has exploded in the NCP and NWP. These are assets that require operational expenditures. There is no way around it. People are less poor.

@ Mr Rohan Samarajiva. I think the points you make are sound, and the ‘workaround’ does seem to be a pretty good measure from your report. It gives me hope!

The transport stats might be even more persuasive, though do cheaper loans account for some of that? People in Western Europe (not least Greece!) thought they were rather well off when they were able to get cheap finance to ‘pay’ for these sort of assets. If people can afford to run these vehicles with increasing fuel costs, they must be less poor I guess.

[...] broader point here was how Sri Lanka has gotten dramatically less poor over the past few decades. The average household income is like Rs. 36,000 now, and that’s not all going to expenses. Food prices have been rising [...]

Hey Indi you didn’t take inflation into acount when making the graph. Also, the exchange rate in 1980 was significantly lower. The rupee against the USD was like 52 in 1990 and it’s 109 today. http://www.oanda.com/currency/historical-rates/

those numbers are most likely adjusted for inflation

how are sri lankans getting richer if unemployment is increasing? who is paying all these unemployed ppl, maybe indi? while indi works a crappy job at sunday leader, the majority of sri lankans work even crappier jobs, aka sucking off arabs. indis data only works if u don’t adjust for inflation. of course you can buy more stuff with today’s money in 1970 than you could in 1970 with 1970 money. cheerio kiddies.

The Census and Statistics website is worth a visit, perhaps the best govt website. Lots of good stuff including answers to questions like how many people the govt employs.

From a talk to be given in a few days by the Asst Governor who was in charge of the numbers at the Central Bank:
“Unemployment highest among educated youth (12% in 2010).
State provided 14 % of employment in 2010.
Migrant workers more than 20% of labour force.”

But do look at the new labor force survey on the Stats website.

It appears that some people want facts to fit their preconceived conclusions. Here are some more facts they can grapple with: http://lbo.lk/fullstory.php?nid=1489457800. In the process one hopes the conclusions may change.