Premier Reuben T. Meade is calling on Montserrat residents to fully participate in the ongoing 2025 Household Budgetary Survey – Survey of Living Conditions (HBS-SLC), warning that without this critical data, the island risks missing out on increased welfare support and wages from its international partners.
The survey, being conducted by the Statistics Department of Montserrat (SDM) from June to November 2025, is one of the most comprehensive assessments of household income, expenditure and overall living conditions ever undertaken on the island. A total of 860 randomly selected households will be interviewed.
“We’re doing the enhanced poverty assessment, which is a very intrusive process, to determine the real levels of need across the country,” Premier Meade explained during a recent Legislative Assembly sitting. “I can guarantee that at the end of that process, there will be an uplift in welfare payments because it will be supported by the FCDO. But we need the data to support those requests.”
The HBS-SLC will be conducted under the slogan “Tracking Spending, Understanding Living”. Trained enumerators will visit households and administer the survey using tablet devices. The interviews may take up to two hours, and will collect information about income, consumption habits, housing conditions, education, employment, and access to basic services.
Meade also addressed the political context, urging Opposition members to encourage their supporters to take part in the survey.
“Don’t try to jump the process by proposing spending without the evidence,” he said, referencing a recently defeated Opposition resolution that called for increased salaries and social support. “Encourage people to participate fully when the Statistics Department comes around.”
According to the SDM, the HBS-SLC is designed to “gather reliable data on household income, expenditure, and consumption patterns, along with insights into living conditions across Montserrat.” The data will be used to inform policy decisions, improve social protection, and support economic planning and sustainable development.
Residents selected for the survey are strongly urged to cooperate fully and answer all questions truthfully and completely. The government emphasises that all information collected will be treated confidentially and used strictly for statistical purposes.
For more information on the 2025 Household Budgetary Survey – Survey of Living Conditions (HBS-SLC), visit the official Statistics Department website:
https://statistics.gov.ms/.subjects/social-anddemographi-statistics/.housing-and-household/.household-budget-survey-2025-hbs/
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