MANILA, Philippines — Four out of five Filipinos said their lives got worse in the past 12 months, a new Social Weather Stations survey suggested.

The September 17 to 20 survey found that 82% of adult Filipinos said their quality of life worsened (termed by SWS as “losers”) compared to a year ago, while only 6% believed it got better (termed as “gainers”). The remaining 11% said it was the same.

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This yielded a net gainers score of -76, classified by the polling firm as “catastrophic”—or a score of -50 and below.

SWS said the September 2020 score was among the worst trends in survey history, having recorded -78 in May and -72 in July during the coronavirus crisis

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All areas experienced a drop in net gainers scores and had “catastrophic” figures: -80 in the Visayas, -76 in Metro Manila, -75 in Balance Luzon and -74 in Mindanao.

The sentiment that their lives worsened was highest among those who did not graduate from college (-72 to -83) and households who experienced involuntary hunger (-84).

An earlier SWS survey found that an estimated 7.6 million families experienced involuntary hunger—or hunger due to lack of food in households—at least once in the past three months.

SWS also said that net gainers score is “just as low among those with a job as it is among the jobless.” The poll found that the score is -73 for those employed, -77 for those who never had a job and -79 among those who are currently jobless.

There were some 4.6 million Filipinos without job in July, the Philippine Statistics Authority reported in September.

The poll was conducted using mobile phone and computer-assisted telephone interviewing of 1,249 adult Filipinos nationwide. It had sampling error margin of ±3% for national percentages, ±6% for Metro Manila, ±5% for Balance Luzon, ±6% for the Visayas, and ±6% for Mindanao. — Gaea Katreena Cabico