81 Volume 9 2012 Differential Characteristics of Poor and Non-Poor Communities in Malaybalay City Joy M. Mirasol and Zita I. Dales Abstract Poverty is a multi-dimensional phenomenon. In this study, eight dimensions were considered: demography, economic activities, environmental sanitation, literacy and education, social welfare, food shortage and food threshold of 14,528 households of Malaybalay City, Bukidnon. Given these dimensions, discriminant analysis was used to establish the characteristics of poor and non-poor households on the basis of multiple responses on all households. The classification results reveal 87.9% of households were classified correctly into poor and non-poor groups. Initial results further revealed that literacy and education and environmental sanitation were the strongest predictors of the group classification. Furthermore, on the basis of the classification rule developed in the study, of the identified poor households only 32.14% were recipients of the poverty reduction program of the city while 67.86% of the recipients were actually non-poor. The classification rule developed by this study did not match the classification rule of the city. The analysis of this paper is certainly not of sufficient complexity to allow a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy for Malaybalay City to be devised entirely from this result. Nevertheless, it does provide policy planners with objective measures on the distribution of goods and services for poverty alleviation that might be realized from sectoral poverty reduction strategy. Policy planners should view this result as a guide to allocate resources for poverty reduction in a more informed evidence-based manner. Keywords: differential characteristics, poverty, discriminant analysis Introduction Poverty is the lack of income of an individual or family in order to satisfy the basic needs. Basic needs include food, clothing, shelter, health care, education and information. If one is classified as living in poverty, it means that this household or individual is not having enough to feed and clothe, not having a job to earn a living, not having a land to grow one’s food and other deprivation in well-being. These basic needs are dependent on the income of an individual or household. As described by Albert and Collado (2004), there are essentially three steps to a poverty measurement system. One is choosing a welfare indicator. Second is establishing a poverty line considering a minimum acceptable standard of the welfare indicator that separates the poor from the non-poor. The third is aggregating poverty data. They added that in the Philippines, the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) is in charge of releasing the official poverty statistics that are based on per capita income data sourced from the Family Income and