The full story
The last household income survey was in 2023. It found 15.2% of people below the national basic-needs line of SAT$4,222.62 per adult equivalent a year, and 17.6% of children aged 0 to 14 below it against 11.4% of people aged 65 and over. 1 The 2018 survey had found 21.9% of people and 15.5% of households in hardship. 14 SBS says changes to how the survey was collected and how poverty was measured mean the two national rates are not directly comparable; on the older Pacific method the 2023 rate would be 20.5%. 1 Both surveys fall before September 2025, so nothing yet measures hardship under the Laʻauli government.
On SBS's multidimensional index, recalculated on the same nine indicators for both years, the share of people counted as poor fell from 29.2% in 2018 to 15.2% in 2023. 2 The largest contributors in 2023 were food security, housing and the source of drinking water. 2 UNDP's 2025 global index puts Samoa at 6.3%, but it uses 2019 to 2020 data and a different index, so it is not a competing estimate. 3
Food remains the main pressure. The share of people deprived on the food-security indicator fell from 42.7% in 2018 to 33.9% in 2023. 2 SBS and SPC's profile of the 2023 food data found about 270 g of fruit and vegetables available per person a day against a 400 g recommendation, with more than 55% of dietary energy from foods the guidelines say to limit. 4 A 2025 cost-of-diet study for government and WFP modelled that over 40% of households could not afford a nutritious diet at their observed food spending; it is a model, not a count of people who went hungry. 5
Housing and services: 31.3% of people lived in housing deprived on SBS's materials definition in 2018 and 32.3% in 2023, a slight worsening. 2 The 2023 MICS Plus phone survey found 99% of household members used basic drinking water and 98% unshared improved sanitation, yet 7% said water had been insufficient in the previous seven days. 6 The 2023 survey found 98.2% of households on mains electricity and 85.9% on public water. 1 Supply, not connection, was the 2025 problem: on 7 April 2025 the Fiamē government declared a 30-day energy emergency with a power-rationing schedule. 7 Household internet access rose from 83% in the 2022 MICS Plus wave to 89% in late 2023, and the share of people in households where nobody had used the internet in the past 30 days fell from 11.4% in 2018 to 1.5% in 2023. 62
Policy on both sides: the Fiamē government's 2021/22 budget cut electricity and water prices by 20% from 1 November 2021. 8 The Laʻauli government's 2026/27 budget kept domestic water and electricity tariffs, and in 2026 it paid SAT$150 to every citizen as back-to-school assistance through district councils, SAT$15,850,350 to 105,669 people by 8 April 2026. 91015 Prices: average annual inflation was 7.9% to December 2023 and 2.2% to December 2024; by June 2026 prices were 5.8% above a year earlier, with transport the largest contributor. 131211 No evaluation shows the net effect of any of these measures on hardship.
What is unknown: no household survey has measured poverty, food security, housing or access since 2023, so the trend under the Laʻauli government is unclear. The next HIES, or SBS's 2025 DHS-MICS results, would show it.