The world has made huge progress in reducing extreme poverty; could this be coming to an end?

At the turn of the millennium, 2.2 billion people in the world lived in extreme poverty. In international statistics, this means they survived on less than $3 per day (in today’s money).

In the two decades that followed, this number more than halved. You can see this decline in the chart.

This huge reduction was driven by rising incomes and poverty alleviation across East and South Asia. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the opposite happened: while the share living in extreme poverty declined, the total number increased.

Looking ahead, based on the latest available projections from researchers at the World Bank, this reduction in global extreme poverty is expected to end. In fact, numbers in 2040 might be higher than they are today.

This is because most of the extremely poor today live in countries with stagnant economies. If these do not see much stronger economic growth, the world will have nearly one billion living in dire poverty for decades to come.

Note that these projections are based on the latest growth projections from the World Bank and the IMF. From 2031 onward, poverty projections are based on the average growth rates observed from 2015 to 2024.

Where this page came from

This page was imported from Our World in Data. “The world has made huge progress in reducing extreme poverty; could this be coming to an end?” by Hannah Ritchie, published by Our World in Data under CC BY 4.0. Changed here: set as a page, its interactive charts shown as pictures. Data from third parties keeps its own licence.

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