{"id":842,"date":"2021-08-11T21:50:14","date_gmt":"2021-08-12T01:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/?page_id=842"},"modified":"2021-08-11T23:17:06","modified_gmt":"2021-08-12T03:17:06","slug":"what-percent-of-the-world-is-in-poverty-june-10-2018","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/posts-written-at-ohio-state-univ\/blog-posts-written-at-ohio-state-univ\/what-percent-of-the-world-is-in-poverty-june-10-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"What Percent of the World is in Poverty? (June 10, 2018)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is poverty growing or shrinking around the world?\u00a0 The World Bank a few months ago released new data to answer this question.\u00a0 The picture from the new data is very heartening.\u00a0 The number of poor people around the globe is rapidly shrinking.<\/span><\/p>\n

The best world poverty figures come from the PovcalNet <\/a>program at the World Bank.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The graph below shows the latest PovcalNet figures.\u00a0 The graph tracks the percentage of the world\u2019s population in poverty using three different income levels.<\/p>\n

The dashed line on the bottom of the graph is the easiest hurdle to hit.\u00a0 It tracks the percentage of the world spending less than $1.90 per day.\u00a0 The bottom dashed line shows that in 1981 over forty percent of the world existed on less than a $1.90 per day.\u00a0 However, by 2013 the percentage of the world that existed on this amount\u00a0 or less had fallen by a factor of four to slightly more than ten percent.\u00a0 The middle dotted line boosts the level up to $3.20 per day, while the solid line is a much higher $5.50 per day.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

All three lines show a dramatic fall in the percent of people in poverty.\u00a0 This fall is not caused by inflation, or rising prices, since the World Bank adjusted all data to account for this issue.\u00a0 All data in the graph are in constant 2011 prices.<\/p>\n

The fall is also not caused by a shrinking population.\u00a0 Instead, the world\u2019s population from the early 1980s to present has grown tremendously.\u00a0 Back in the 1980s the world\u2019s population was about 4.5 billion people while today it is close to 7.5 billion.\u00a0 Even with the tremendous growth in population the absolute number of people in extreme poverty has fallen.\u00a0 In 1981 the world had 1.9 billion people under the $1.90 per day poverty line.\u00a0 In 2013 there were just 780 million under this cutoff.<\/p>\n

Early world poverty figures were criticized because they used estimated world poverty based on a small number of\u00a0 countries.\u00a0 The World Bank\u2019s first estimate included 22 poor countries<\/a>.\u00a0 However, the latest figures come from two million randomly sampled households in 164 different countries, making this criticism no longer valid.<\/p>\n

The takeaway from the revised data is clear.\u00a0 We are bombarded constantly with negative news stories.\u00a0 These stories make me feel terrible and make me feel the future of our world is bleak.\u00a0 However, when I look at the long term data, I see a very different picture.\u00a0 The real news story is one of hope and steady improvement.\u00a0 The number of people in extreme poverty is falling dramatically over time.\u00a0 It\u2019s unfortunate that good news items, like this one, don\u2019t capture people\u2019s attention as much as death, war and mayhem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is poverty growing or shrinking around the world?\u00a0 The World Bank a few months ago released new data to answer this question.\u00a0 The picture from the new data is very heartening.\u00a0 The number of poor people around the globe is rapidly shrinking. The best world poverty figures come from the PovcalNet program at the World … Continue reading What Percent of the World is in Poverty? (June 10, 2018)<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5335,"featured_media":0,"parent":785,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/842"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5335"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":843,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/842\/revisions\/843"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}