Poverty alleviation is a major indicator to decide whether economic growth is of benefit to the poor in a
society. This study therefore addressed the extent of non-income poverty alleviation between 1999 and 2008, using
the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data. The fuzzy method and two stage least square approaches were
used to analyze the data. The results show that between 1999 and 2003, non-income welfare highly improved in
Nigeria, but this could not be sustained in 2008. The rural areas were found to be more deprived in essential basic
social services, while the northern part has highest non-income poverty incidences. The two-stage least square
regression results show that growth in composite welfare indicators, literacy, household size and number of trained
youth significantly reduced poverty incidences (p<0.10), while unemployment rate, number of robbery cases and
annual allocation from the federation accounts significantly increased it. It was recommended that government
should ensure pro-poor spending on basic social services like improved water, sanitation, education, and
employment schemes.