Extreme Poverty Worldwide Today

1. The World Bank defines “extreme poverty” as the condition in which a person is trying to survive on less than $1.90 per day (in locally comparable price terms).

2. Globally, according to World Bank estimates published in 2016, 10.7% of all people in 2013 fell below that threshold.

3. The Sustainable Development Goal of eradicating extreme poverty “for all people everywhere” by 2030, set by United Nations in 2015 is likely in reach.

4. The total number of extremely poor people is about 766.6 million — well more than twice the U.S. population.

5. They live across six regions: East Asia/Pacific, Eastern Europe/Central Asia, Latin America/the Caribbean, Middle East/North Africa, South Asia and finally Sub-Saharan Africa.

6. Eastern Europe/Central Asia (mostly made up of former Communist countries) is the best off among those poorer regions. Just 2.3% of the region’s population, for a total of 10.8 million, lives in extreme poverty.

7. The World Bank has also defined a “median” poverty level as an income of $3.10 per day in locally comparable price terms.

8. At that higher threshold of poverty, 82.8% of the people in the world’s low-income countries are still in poverty.

9. The share of people at or below the median poverty line is eight times more than the share living in extreme poverty at a global level.

10. Even in middle-income countries – countries such as China, India and South Africa — 71.7% of the population is struggling with daily incomes at or below the median poverty level.

Sources: The Globalist Research Center, World Bank