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Poverty and inequality fell in Jamaica, but weather events – particularly hurricanes – are driving cycles of food insecurity and economic hardship, according to the World Bank’s Poverty and Equity Brief released in October.
“Climate-related weather events and other external shocks increasingly threaten welfare for poor and vulnerable Jamaicans,” the World Bank stated.
Its release of the brief came as Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 storm, was cutting a path towards Jamaica, and more than a year after the last big storm, Hurricane Beryl, hit Jamaica at Category 4 strength in July 2024.
Hurricane Beryl’s impact was especially severe in farming communities, where crop damage and supply-chain disruptions triggered a surge in food inflation, it noted. Although prices have since eased, the World Bank noted that food insecurity remains high.
“This underlines the need to adapt social-protection policies to better respond to shocks and uncertainty,” the development bank reiterated.
In the months following the storm, one-third of all households and more than half of those in the poorest quintile experienced moderate to severe food insecurity, according to the Food Insecurity Experience Scale.
The World Bank didn’t list recommendations, but in the past has mentioned building fiscal buffers, investing in early warning systems, and strengthening coordination between ministries responsible for welfare, agriculture, and disaster preparedness.
The report updates the World Bank’s poverty data for Jamaica based on government figures released locally in May. It also provides an opportunity for the bank to respond to those findings and assess broader welfare risks.
As of 2023, some 231,700 Jamaicans were living in poverty – about 8.2 per cent of the population – compared to 450,000, or 16.7 per cent, in 2021. Many had faced heightened vulnerability due to pandemic-related hardships, which eased over time as reflected in increased consumption, the World Bank indicated.
“This decline reflects the rise in consumption observed across all quintiles, with the bottom 40 per cent of the distribution experiencing the largest gains: real per capita consumption increased by 12 per cent in the poorest quintile and by 16.6 per cent in the second poorest,” the bank reported.
Additionally, “inequality also fell”, with the consumption-based Gini index dropping from 39.9 in 2021 to 35.6 in 2023. Nevertheless, spatial disparities persist. The share of people living in poverty, measured using the national methodology, was just 3.0 per cent in the Greater Kingston Metropolitan Area in 2023 compared to 9.0 per cent in other urban centres and 11.5 per cent in rural areas.
Over the years, Jamaica has attempted to spread the proceeds of growth to the broader population.
“The poorest 40 per cent have typically benefited the most during periods of economic expansion largely through job creation,” the World Bank noted.
However, given the high prevalence of low-productivity, unstable, and informal jobs, this group has also been the most vulnerable during downturns, the multilateral agency said.
Jamaica’s unemployment rate stood at 3.3 per cent in the second quarter of 2025, virtually half the Latin America and Caribbean average of 6.2 per cent for 2024.
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