Eastern Cape has highest dependence on social grants among the provinces

The Eastern Cape has the highest dependence on social grants in the country at 35%.

It is followed by Limpopo (30.4%), Northern Cape (29.8%) and KwaZulu-Natal (24.6%).

The Western Cape and Gauteng are the only two provinces in which more than two-thirds of households reported salaries as their main source of income (72.9% and 70.5%), Statistics SA said on Tuesday.

It was releasing its General Household Survey (GHS 2018).

Gauteng is home to three of the four metros where over two-thirds of households reported salaries as their main income. These are Johannesburg (72.9%), Tshwane (71%) and Ekurhuleni (69%).

Cape Town was second after Johannesburg at 72.6%.

Stats SA said in its report: “While the majority of metropolitan households (more than 50%) depended on salaries as their main source of income, a relatively large dependence on other sources was noticed in Ekurhuleni (14.6%), Johannesburg (13.7%), Mangaung (12%) and Tshwane (11.4%).”

More than one-fifth of households in Nelson Mandela Bay (22%), Buffalo City (20.6%) and Mangaung (20%) listed grants as their main source of income.

“Social grants remain a vital safety net, particularly in the poorest provinces,” StatsSA noted.

The percentage of people experiencing hunger had decreased from 29% in 2002 to 11% in 2018, the survey showed.

The percentage of households who were vulnerable to hunger reflects the same pattern as experienced by individuals, as it declined from 24% in 2002 to 9.7% in 2018.

Food access problems were the most common in North West, where 36.6% of households had inadequate or severely inadequate food access.

Inadequate or severely inadequate access to food was also observed in Northern Cape (32%), Mpumalanga (28%), and Eastern Cape (25%).