The rate of poor households has decreased from 58% to 10% in the span of 2003 and 2013. Since 2015, the Vietnamese government has issued new poverty standard which considers various factors including income, inaccessibility to basic social services such as healthcare, education, accommodation, clean water, sanitation and information. According to the 2016 statistics, Vietnam had approximately 2 million poor households and 1.3 million near poor households. The Mekong Delta had the highest rate of poverty rate, with 40% of households being poor. One of the main reasons is that migrant workers in this region do not have access to accommodation or clean water or sanitary services. It is estimated that by the end of 2017, the number of poor households nationally will drop to 7%.
