Despite a general improvement in the quality of life for South Africans in the past five years, poverty continues to plague millions of households.
The results of the Community Survey, released in Pretoria yesterday, show that at least 2.2million households had skipped a meal in the 12 months prior to the survey because there was not enough food.
Stats SA executive manager for social statistics, Isabelle Schmidt, said: "If the household normally had two meals, they would have skipped one. For those that normally have one meal a day, it means there was no meal."
Almost one in five households nationally reported to have run out of money to buy food in the 12 months prior to the survey.
Eastern Cape and Northern Cape had the most households that had skipped a meal (17.5%) followed by Free State (15.7%), KwaZulu-Natal (14.8%), Mpumalanga (14.8%), Limpopo (12.9%), Gauteng (10.8%) and the Western Cape (8.4%).
Though most provinces reported a decline in poverty levels between 2011 and 2016, levels of poverty increased from 10.1% to 11.5% in Limpopo.
The lowest poverty level was in Western Cape at 2.7%.
The number of households with no access to piped water increased from 1.3million to 1.7million.
