Extreme Poverty Likely Hits Fewer than 10 Percent of Global Population

A Friday afternoon reminder that not everything about the world is going to hell, in a week that all too many people seem to believe that, from Umar Serajuddin of the World Bank last week:  

Extreme poverty fell from 37 percent to 13 percent between 1990 and 2012; and based on national growth rates over the past 10 years, the global extreme poverty rate is estimated to be below 10 percent in 2015, a drop of more than two-thirds since 1990:…..

• A large number of people have moved out of poverty since 1990, and impressively, even though the world's population grew by 2 billion, there are over a billion fewer poor people.

• There are many countries with relatively low poverty rates that still have large numbers of the globally extreme poor living there (e.g. China, India).

• At the same time, there are a large number of countries with stubbornly high poverty rates whererelatively small numbers of the world's extremely poor live (e.g Haiti, Uganda).

• Since the SDGs focus on "no one left behind", when looking at poverty across the world, both rates and numbers matter.

• SDG target 1.2 aims to halve national poverty rates in all its dimensions between 2015 and 2030 – as it's based on country-specific understanding of poverty (which often differ) it's relevant for all countries, rich and poor alike.

Read the whole thing for more.

Ronald Bailey wrote in January about the research of Nobel laureate Angus Deaton into this happy phenomenon of reductions in global poverty.

Check out ReasonTV's inspiring video "Yes, the World is Getting Better, Here's Why"