Three out of five black South Africans are languishing in poverty, the Poverty Trends in South Africa report by StatsSA, released on Tuesday revealed.

“Look at how the poor are. Three out of five blacks are poor. And you can see whites here, that’s the poverty of whites, it is non-existent,” Statistician-General Pali Lehohla said as he referred journalists to graphs on an LCD slide during a press briefing in Pretoria.

“Indians have moved [from the grip of poverty]. We could see this in the numbers when we spoke about education. We pointed out how the Indians have caught up with whites in education, and as they did that, you would see how the poverty drops when education increases. You see blacks there are flat [as the most poverty-stricken group] and with slight vicissitudes, such as downgrades and drought, poverty returns.”

Lehohla said over a significant period of time, that was how black South Africans had fared.

The Statistician-General emphasised that education was the tried and tested means to lift people out of poverty.

“What more evidence do you need? If you have no education you will be poor. Given that many of South Africans don’t have [education], the scourge of poverty is not going to go away. Not soon, because we should think about education as a solution. When I talk about education, I’m talking about education that solves problems,” said Lehohla.

“If you think about education, it is an investment of 30 years in the future. The question is – will the children that will be born today and tomorrow live a life of prosperity? What are the things in the system that gives us that kind of guarantee? Are our policies, as we implement them, giving us the confidence that the children will be educated? When I look at the numbers, I get nightmares. The numbers suggest no,” said Lehohla.

“To those with higher education, [there is] no poverty. Those with matric, it’s there for some. The evidence is very compelling. Inequality persists and you can see the inequality by Gini [coefficient]. Inequality amongst blacks is the highest and has stayed the same. Amongst whites of course, inequality is beginning to increase; even amongst the Indians.”

He said due to very low incomes amongst black South Africans, saving was almost impossible. The study also found that poor families spend a significant amount of their earnings on food “which is not even good food”.

“There [the poor households] it’s pap and some bones, and mixed vegetables – beetroot, cabbage and everything in there. Because their income is low, they spend their money on starch. The rich spend more towards household expenditure and utilities. These ones [the rich] take more poultry, boerewors, and the other high protein foods. The poor eat starch – rice, white bread, brown bread. The rich still eat those but in smaller quantities,” said Lehohla.

“The information we have here crystallises the situation that we have in South Africa. The numbers are telling us a very difficult story.”

The Poverty Trends in South Africa report, released on Tuesday, is titled “An examination of absolute poverty between 2006 and 2015”.

Poverty estimates are essential for monitoring and tracking progress towards achieving the poverty targets outlined in government’s National Development Plan (NDP) and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.