Poverty decreased to 15.4% in the first quarter of 2026 in the Dominican Republic, a 2.6 percentage point drop from the 18.1% recorded in the same period of 2025.
Poverty and economic growth
The Government attributes part of that improvement to the expansion of economic activity, after the Monthly Economic Activity Indicator (IMAE) accumulated a 4.1% growth in the evaluated period. That performance would have favored the incomes of households with higher levels of vulnerability and helped to reduce poverty.
Towards that end, the increase in minimum wages, both sectorized and non-sectorized, applied between April 2025 and February 2026, also influenced. In practical terms, that adjustment improved the purchasing power of part of the occupied population in the lower income brackets.
Poverty: what official data show
The figures come from the Ministry of Finance and Economy’s tracking infographic, validated by the National Office of Statistics and the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic, the institution responsible for collecting the data.
Wages received in the last 12 months increased compared to the previous period, allowing the contribution of labor income to the reduction of poverty to reach 3.74 percentage points.
That effect helped to counteract inflation and reinforce the downward trend of poverty, according to the official bulletin. In other words, more people had room to cover the normative basket of goods and services that defines this indicator.
Urban and rural gap in poverty
The report maintains a clear difference between rural and urban areas. Rural poverty stood at 18.8%, while urban poverty reached 14.8%, a 4.0 percentage point gap.
- Rural: 18.8%
- Urban: 14.8%
- National total: 15.4%
The persistence of that distance confirms that poverty continues to hit households outside urban centers harder, where informal jobs and limited access to services and economic opportunities tend to concentrate.
Poverty and cost of living
Poverty is defined as the deficit between a household’s available income and the resources needed to buy a basic basket of goods and services. When wages rise and the economy grows, the indicator tends to improve; when inflation presses daily spending, the progress may be slowed.
In this case, the observed reduction suggests a combination of increased productive activity, better labor incomes, and salary adjustments that, at least in the short term, favored households with lower resources. The evolution of poverty in the next quarters will allow us to know if the improvement is consolidated or if it responds to a temporary effect.
For now, the data marks a positive signal for poverty in the country, although the territorial gap and sensitivity to the cost of living remain the main challenges.
