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Hong Kong: Poverty rate slightly increases
Hong Kong recorded a poor population of more than 1.4 million people and a poverty rate of 21.4% according to the pre-intervention poverty figures in 2019.
The Hong Kong Poverty Situation Report 2019 released by the Government today showed that recurrent cash measures lifted 392,900 people out of poverty and reduced the poverty rate by 5.6 percentage points last year.
After the Government s recurrent cash intervention, the poverty rate recorded a slight increase in 2019 of 0.9 percentage point to 15.8%.
The Government said the Hong Kong economy, hit by local social incidents and China-US trade tensions, fell into the first recession since the global financial crisis in 2009 and the labour market slackened noticeably in the second half of last year.