CGD in the News

What's The Meaning Of The World Bank's New Poverty Lines? (NPR Goats & Soda)

October 25, 2017

From the article:

According to the World Bank, if you're living on $1.90 a day or less, you're living in extreme poverty.

The 767 million people in that category have $1.90 a day or less in purchasing power to fulfill their daily needs.

Most of that money goes for food – only it may not be enough to purchase nutritious food or to stave off hunger. Hundreds of millions of the extreme poor are malnourished...

In a nutshell, there's extreme poverty ... and just plain poverty.

"If you're living in shantytown slums around Lima with no basic services and scraping to get basic subsistence, you would say, 'Yeah, I'm poor,' — even though the World Bank might measure your income at $4 a day," says Justin Sandefur, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development.

He also notes that "there almost isn't anyone in middle-income countries as poor as the most people in Ethiopia."

Read full article here.