Extreme poverty has declined substantially in the world, according to most experts. In 1820, between 84% and 94% of all people lived in extreme poverty, or the equivalent of less than $2.00 per day* adjusted for inflation. This means, if you’re an average person without an aristocratic background, had you lived in 1820 you would have almost certainly lived in poverty regardless of where in the world you were born. Today,* those numbers have been essentially flipped and only 10% of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty. Since 1980 alone, there has been a 33% drop in extreme poverty rates.
The main cause of the reduction of extreme poverty has been economic liberalization and globalization beginning in the late 1970s, with acceleration happening in the 1980s, and continuing to today. People are freer to start businesses, even in the most remote parts of the world, and connectivity to mobile technology has revolutionized access to capital and
While the total number of humans living in extreme poverty is still far too high,* the fact is the chances of a newborn child today being born into those circumstances today has dropped significantly. The trend appears to be continuing in that direction to the point where some experts believe extreme poverty could be eliminated in this century. The reduction in the extreme poverty rate is already a significant human achievement because each human lifted out of poverty means less
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Learn more from the sources used for this article:
- https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty
- https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/05/World-Poverty-Since-1820.png
- https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty
- https://www.humanprogress.org/article.php?p=1779
- https://humanprogress.org/article.php?p=462
- http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/
Hover over any * to see some Extra Facts for Nerds within the article text.
