The Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) is defending the method it uses to collate poverty data.

Responding to comments made by Professor Denise Eldemire- Shearer in a story carried by The Sunday Gleaner two weeks ago, the PIOJ notes that a person is deemed poor when his consumption, in dollar terms, is at or below the established poverty line. This is arrived at by establishing the cost of a minimum basket of goods and services.

"The elderly poor who are consuming below the poverty threshold would not be missed by this methodology," PIOJ said in a letter to this newspaper last week.

In the story, Professor Eldemire-Shearer had raised the possibility that some poor elderly people were being missed by official statistics as demographers often take into account the personal assets of the elderly and not their living conditions.

The PIOJ stated, however, that it supported the recommendations proposed by Professor Eldemire-Shearer to reform pension systems on the island, noting that the National Development Plan was grappling with these and other issues.

- Gareth Manning