In a parliamentary written reply to Johari Ghani (BN-Titiwangsa), law and institutional reform minister Azalina Othman Said noted that there were 2,713 hardcore poor families in Kuala Lumpur in 2022 compared to 3,865 in 2021.

She also said that there was a 15% drop in the number of poor families in the city from 4,545 in 2021 to 3,874 in 2022.

A household is considered poor and hardcore poor if their monthly income is below RM2,208 and RM1,169 respectively.

Johari had asked about the number of families categorised as poor and hardcore poor in Kuala Lumpur from 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.

He also wanted to know the government’s plan to overcome the problem of poverty in Kuala Lumpur.

Azalina said the government had implemented various programmes to boost the families’ income, adding that it had also introduced several initiatives to improve their education, health, housing and standard of living.

She cited the Jualan Rakyat MyGrocer@Wilayah, MyMedic@Wilayah, MyFood@Wilayah and MyJob@Wilayah programmes rolled out by the federal territories department as examples.

“These programmes help Kuala Lumpur residents to address the rising cost of living, expands access to health services… and increases job opportunities.”

Azalina said that the federal territories department, Kuala Lumpur City Hall and Labuan Corporation are committed to eradicating hardcore poverty in line with the national target of 2025.

She added that Putrajaya successfully eradicated hardcore poverty last July.