Greater Santo Domingo Has the Most People in Poverty; the Southwest Has the Highest Share

Greater Santo Domingo is home to 42.68% of the country's people in poverty, but border regions have the highest rates. Territorial details reveal enormous gaps.

According to a study by the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the Ozama region, which includes Greater Santo Domingo, has 861,138 people living in poverty, equal to 42.68% of the national total. It is the largest population in poverty in the country, although it is not where poverty is highest as a share of the population.

The highest overall poverty rates are in the border regions of Enriquillo and El Valle, at 28.92% and 26.20%. The study, which examines territorial inequalities, describes two different realities: the capital has more residents in that condition, while the southwest has a greater proportion of its population in that situation.

Differences between territories are wide. The study estimates overall poverty affects 18.81% of the population, about 2,017,733 people. The lowest rate is in Tenares, in the Hermanas Mirabal province, at 6.35%, while the José Francisco Peña Gómez area in Pedernales records 77.87%, a gap of 71.52 percentage points. The highest concentrations are in the border zone, in Elías Piña, Pedernales, Independencia and Bahoruco, as well as in municipalities of San Juan.

According to the study, southwestern regions also show deeper deprivation. In Enriquillo and El Valle, poor households have per capita incomes equal to 66.6% and 69.3% of their poverty lines, compared with about 75% in Cibao Sur and Cibao Nordeste. In other words, their incomes are further from the threshold needed to escape poverty.

Nationally, monetary poverty stood at 17.3% in 2025, a drop of 1.7 percentage points from 19% in 2024. According to the Ministry of Finance and Economy, that decline allowed 172,346 people to rise above that condition.