poverty of the world essay

By Joe Hasell, Max Roser, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Pablo Arriagada

Global poverty is one of the most pressing problems that the world faces today. The poorest in the world are often undernourished , without access to basic services such as electricity and safe drinking water ; they have less access to education , and suffer from much poorer health .

In order to make progress against such poverty in the future, we need to understand poverty around the world today and how it has changed.

On this page you can find all our data, visualizations and writing relating to poverty. This work aims to help you understand the scale of the problem today; where progress has been achieved and where it has not; what can be done to make progress against poverty in the future; and the methods behind the data on which this knowledge is based.

Key Insights on Poverty

Measuring global poverty in an unequal world.

There is no single definition of poverty. Our understanding of the extent of poverty and how it is changing depends on which definition we have in mind.

In particular, richer and poorer countries set very different poverty lines in order to measure poverty in a way that is informative and relevant to the level of incomes of their citizens.

For instance, while in the United States a person is counted as being in poverty if they live on less than roughly $24.55 per day, in Ethiopia the poverty line is set more than 10 times lower – at $2.04 per day. You can read more about how these comparable national poverty lines are calculated in this footnote. 1

To measure poverty globally, however, we need to apply a poverty line that is consistent across countries.

This is the goal of the International Poverty Line of $2.15 per day – shown in red in the chart – which is set by the World Bank and used by the UN to monitor extreme poverty around the world.

We see that, in global terms, this is an extremely low threshold indeed – set to reflect the poverty lines adopted nationally in the world’s poorest countries. It marks an incredibly low standard of living – a level of income much lower than just the cost of a healthy diet .

From $1.90 to $2.15 a day: the updated International Poverty Line

What you should know about this data.

• Global poverty data relies on national household surveys that have differences affecting their comparability across countries or over time. Here the data for the US relates to incomes and the data for other countries relates to consumption expenditure. 2
• The poverty lines here are an approximation of national definitions of poverty, made in order to allow comparisons across the countries. 1
• Non-market sources of income, including food grown by subsistence farmers for their own consumption, are taken into account. 3
• Data is measured in 2017 international-$, which means that inflation and differences in the cost of living across countries are taken into account. 4

Global extreme poverty declined substantially over the last generation

Over the past generation extreme poverty declined hugely. This is one of the most important ways our world has changed over this time.

There are more than a billion fewer people living below the International Poverty Line of $2.15 per day today than in 1990. On average, the number declined by 47 million every year, or 130,000 people each day. 5

The scale of global poverty today, however, remains vast. The latest global estimates of extreme poverty are for 2019. In that year the World Bank estimates that around 650 million people – roughly one in twelve – were living on less than $2.15 a day.

Extreme poverty: how far have we come, how far do we still have to go?

• Extreme poverty here is defined according to the UN’s definition of living on less than $2.15 a day – an extremely low threshold needed to monitor and draw attention to the living conditions of the poorest around the world. Read more in our article, From $1.90 to $2.15 a day: the updated International Poverty Line .
• Global poverty data relies on national household surveys that have differences affecting their comparability across countries or over time. 2
• Surveys are less frequently available in poorer countries and for earlier decades. To produce regional and global poverty estimates, the World Bank collates the closest survey for each country and projects the data forward or backwards to the year being estimated. 6
• Data is measured in 2017 international-$, which means that inflation and differences in the cost of living across countries are taken into account . 4

The pandemic pushed millions into extreme poverty

Official estimates for global poverty over the course of the Coronavirus pandemic are not yet available.

But it is clear that the global recession it brought about has had a terrible impact on the world’s poorest.

Preliminary estimates produced by researchers at the World Bank suggest that the number of people in extreme poverty rose by around 70 million in 2020 – the first substantial rise in a generation – and remains around 70-90 million higher than would have been expected in the pandemic’s absence. On these preliminary estimates, the global extreme poverty rate rose to around 9% in 2020. 7

• Figures for 2020-2022 are preliminary estimates and projections by World Bank researchers, based on economic growth forecasts. The pre-pandemic projection is based on growth forecasts prior to the pandemic. You can read more about this data and the methods behind it in the World Bank’s Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2022 report. 8

Hundreds of millions will remain in extreme poverty on current trends

Extreme poverty declined during the last generation because the majority of the poorest people on the planet lived in countries with strong economic growth – primarily in Asia.

The majority of the poorest now live in Sub-Saharan Africa, where weaker economic growth and high population growth in many countries has led to a rising number of people living in extreme poverty.

The chart here shows projections of global extreme poverty produced by World Bank researchers based on economic growth forecasts. 9

A very bleak future is ahead of us should such weak economic growth in the world’s poorest countries continue – a future in which extreme poverty is the reality for hundreds of millions for many years to come.

• The extreme poverty estimates and projections shown here relate to a previous release of the World Bank’s poverty and inequality data in which incomes are expressed in 2011 international-$. The World Bank has since updated its methods, and now measures incomes in 2017 international-$. As part of this change, the International Poverty Line used to measure extreme poverty has also been updated: from $1.90 (in 2011 prices) to $2.15 (in 2017 prices). This has had little effect on our overall understanding of poverty and inequality around the world. You can read more about this change and how it affected the World Bank estimates of poverty in our article From $1.90 to $2.15 a day: the updated International Poverty Line .
• Figures for 2018 and beyond are preliminary estimates and projections by Lakner et al. (2022), based on economic growth forecasts. You can read more about this data and the methods behind it in the related blog post. 10
• Data is measured in 2011 international-$, which means that inflation and differences in the cost of living across countries are taken into account. 4

The rapid progress seen in many countries shows an end to poverty is possible

Each of the countries shown in the chart achieved large declines in extreme poverty over the last generation. 11

The fact that rapid progress against poverty has been achieved in many places is one of the most important lessons we can learn from the available data on extreme poverty.

For those who are not aware of such progress – which is the majority of people – it would be easy to make the mistake of believing that poverty is inevitable and that action to tackle poverty is hence doomed to fail.

The huge progress seen in so many places shows that this view is incorrect.

After 200 years of progress the fight against global poverty is just beginning

Over the past two centuries the world made good progress against extreme poverty. But only very recently has poverty fallen at higher poverty lines.

Global poverty rates at these higher lines remain very high:

• 25% of the world lives on less than $3.65 per day – a poverty line broadly reflective of the lines adopted in lower-middle income countries.
• 47% of the world lives on less than $6.85 per day – a poverty line broadly reflective of the lines adopted in upper-middle income countries.
• 84% live on less than $30 per day – a poverty line broadly reflective of the lines adopted in high income countries. 12

Economic growth over the past two centuries has allowed the majority of the world to leave extreme poverty behind. But by the standards of today’s rich countries, the world remains very poor. If this should change, the world needs to achieve very substantial economic growth further still.

The history of the end of poverty has just begun

How much economic growth is necessary to reduce global poverty substantially?

• The data from 1981 onwards is based on household surveys collated by the World Bank. Earlier figures are from Moatsos (2021), who extends the series backwards based on historical reconstructions of GDP per capita and inequality data. 13
• All data is measured in international-$ which means that inflation and differences in purchasing power across countries are taken into account. 4
• The World Bank data for the higher poverty lines is measured in 2017 international-$. Recently, the World Bank updated its methodology having previously used 2011 international-$ to measure incomes and set poverty lines. The Moatsos (2021) historical series is based on the previously-used World Bank definition of extreme poverty – living on less than $1.90 a day when measured in 2011 international-$. This is broadly equivalent to the current World Bank definition of extreme poverty – living on less than $2.15 a day when measured in 2017 international-$. You can read more about this update to the World Bank’s methodology and how it has affected its estimates of poverty in our article From $1.90 to $2.15 a day: the updated International Poverty Line .
• The global poverty data shown from 1981 onwards relies on national household surveys that have differences affecting their comparability across countries or over time. 2
• Such surveys are less frequently available in poorer countries and for earlier decades. To produce regional and global poverty estimates, the World Bank collates the closest survey for each country and projects the data forward or backwards to the year being estimated. 6
• Non-market sources of income, including food grown by subsistence farmers for their own consumption, are taken into account. This is also true of the historical data – in producing historical estimates of GDP per capita on which these long-run estimates are based, economic historians take into account such non-market sources of income, as we discuss further in our article How do we know the history of extreme poverty?

Explore Data on Poverty

About this data.

All the data included in this explorer is available to download in GitHub , alongside a range of other poverty and inequality metrics.

Where is this data sourced from?

This data explorer is collated and adapted from the World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP).

The World Bank’s PIP data is a large collection of household surveys where steps have been taken by the World Bank to harmonize definitions and methods across countries and over time.

About the comparability of household surveys

There is no global survey of incomes. To understand how incomes across the world compare, researchers need to rely on available national surveys.

Such surveys are partly designed with cross-country comparability in mind, but because the surveys reflect the circumstances and priorities of individual countries at the time of the survey, there are some important differences.

Income vs expenditure surveys

One important issue is that the survey data included within the PIP database tends to measure people’s income in high-income countries, and people’s consumption expenditure in poorer countries.

The two concepts are closely related: the income of a household equals their consumption plus any saving, or minus any borrowing or spending out of savings.

One important difference is that, while zero consumption is not a feasible value – people with zero consumption would starve – a zero income is a feasible value. This means that, at the bottom end of the distribution, income and consumption can give quite different pictures about a person’s welfare. For instance, a person dissaving in retirement may have a very low, or even zero, income, but have a high level of consumption nevertheless.

The gap between income and consumption is higher at the top of this distribution too, richer households tend to save more, meaning that the gap between income and consumption is higher at the top of this distribution too. Taken together, one implication is that inequality measured in terms of consumption is generally somewhat lower than the inequality measured in terms of income.

In our Data Explorer of this data there is the option to view only income survey data or only consumption survey data, or instead to pool the data available from both types of survey – which yields greater coverage.

Other comparability issues

There are a number of other ways in which comparability across surveys can be limited. The PIP Methodology Handbook provides a good summary of the comparability and data quality issues affecting this data and how it tries to address them.

In collating this survey data the World Bank takes a range of steps to harmonize it where possible, but comparability issues remain. These affect comparisons both across countries and within individual countries over time.

To help communicate the latter, the World Bank produces a variable that groups surveys within each individual country into more comparable ‘spells’. Our Data Explorer provides the option of viewing the data with these breaks in comparability indicated, and these spells are also indicated in our data download .

Global and regional poverty estimates

Along with data for individual countries, the World Bank also provides global and regional poverty estimates which aggregate over the available country data.

Surveys are not conducted annually in every country however – coverage is generally poorer the further back in time you look, and remains particularly patchy within Sub-Saharan Africa. You can see that visualized in our chart of the number of surveys included in the World Bank data by decade.

In order to produce global and regional aggregate estimates for a given year, the World Bank takes the surveys falling closest to that year for each country and ‘lines-up’ the data to the year being estimated by projecting it forwards or backwards.

This lining-up is generally done on the assumption that household incomes or expenditure grow in line with the growth rates observed in national accounts data. You can read more about the interpolation methods used by the World Bank in Chapter 5 of the Poverty and Inequality Platform Methodology Handbook.

How does the data account for inflation and for differences in the cost of living across countries?

To account for inflation and price differences across countries, the World Bank’s data is measured in international dollars. This is a hypothetical currency that results from price adjustments across time and place. It is defined as having the same purchasing power as one US-$ would in the United States in a given base year. One int.-$ buys the same quantity of goods and services no matter where or when it is spent.

There are many challenges to making such adjustments and they are far from perfect. Angus Deaton ( Deaton, 2010 ) provides a good discussion of the difficulties involved in price adjustments and how this relates to global poverty measurement.

But in a world where price differences across countries and over time are large it is important to attempt to account for these differences as well as possible, and this is what these adjustments do.

In September 2022, the World Bank updated its methodology, and now uses international-$ expressed in 2017 prices – updated from 2011 prices. This has had little effect on our overall understanding of poverty and inequality around the world. But poverty estimates for particular countries vary somewhat between the old and updated methodology. You can read more about this update in our article From $1.90 to $2.15 a day: the updated International Poverty Line .

To allow for comparisons with the official data now expressed in 2017 international-$ data, the World Bank continues to release its poverty and inequality data expressed in 2011 international-$ as well. We have built a Data Explorer to allow you to compare these, and we make all figures available in terms of both sets of prices in our data download .

Absolute vs relative poverty lines

This dataset provides poverty estimates for a range of absolute and relative poverty lines.

An absolute poverty line represents a fixed standard of living; a threshold that is held constant across time. Within the World Bank’s poverty data, absolute poverty lines also aim to represent a standard of living that is fixed across countries (by converting local currencies to international-$). The International Poverty Line of $2.15 per day (in 2017 international-$) is the best known absolute poverty line and is used by the World Bank and the UN to measure extreme poverty around the world.

The value of relative poverty lines instead rises and falls as average incomes change within a given country. In most cases they are set at a certain fraction of the median income. Because of this, relative poverty can be considered a metric of inequality – it measures how spread out the bottom half of the income distribution is.

The idea behind measuring poverty in relative terms is that a person’s well-being depends not on their own absolute standard of living but on how that standard compares with some reference group, or whether it enables them to participate in the norms and customs of their society. For instance, joining a friend’s birthday celebration without shame might require more resources in a rich society if the norm is to go for an expensive meal out, or give costly presents.

Our dataset includes three commonly-used relative poverty lines: 40%, 50%, and 60% of the median.

Such lines are most commonly used in rich countries, and are the main way poverty is measured by the OECD and the European Union .More recently, relative poverty measures have come to be applied in a global context. The share of people living below 50 per cent of median income is, for instance, one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal indicators . And the World Bank now produces estimates of global poverty using a Societal Poverty Line that combines absolute and relative components.

When comparing relative poverty rates around the world, however, it is important to keep in mind that – since average incomes are so far apart – such relative poverty lines relate to very different standards of living in rich and poor countries.

Does the data account for non-market income, such as food grown by subsistence farmers?

Many poor people today, as in the past, rely on subsistence farming rather than a monetary income gained from selling goods or their labor on the market. To take this into account and make a fair comparison of their living standards, the statisticians that produce these figures estimate the monetary value of their home production and add it to their income/expenditure.

Research & Writing

Despite making immense progress against extreme poverty, it is still the reality for every tenth person in the world.

$2.15 a day: the updated International Poverty Line

What does the World Bank’s updated methods mean for our understanding of global poverty?

Global poverty over the long-run

How do we know the history of extreme poverty?

Joe Hasell and Max Roser

Breaking out of the Malthusian trap: How pandemics allow us to understand why our ancestors were stuck in poverty

The short history of global living conditions and why it matters that we know it

Poverty & economic growth.

The economies that are home to the poorest billions of people need to grow if we want global poverty to decline substantially

Global poverty in an unequal world: Who is considered poor in a rich country? And what does this mean for our understanding of global poverty?

What do poor people think about poverty?

More articles on poverty.

Three billion people cannot afford a healthy diet

Hannah Ritchie

Homelessness and poverty in rich countries

Esteban Ortiz-Ospina

Historical poverty reductions: more than a story about ‘free-market capitalism’

Interactive charts on poverty.

Official definitions of poverty in different countries are often not directly comparable due to the different ways poverty is measured. For example, countries account for the size of households in different ways in their poverty measures.

The poverty lines shown here are an approximation of national definitions, harmonized to allow for comparisons across countries. For all countries apart from the US, we take the harmonized poverty line calculated by Jolliffe et al. (2022). These lines are calculated as the international dollar figure which, in the World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP) data, yields the same poverty rate as the officially reported rate using national definitions in a particular year (around 2017).

For the US, Jolliffe et al. (2022) use the OECD’s published poverty rate – which is measured against a relative poverty line of 50% of the median income. This yields a poverty line of $34.79 (measured using 2017 survey data). This however is not the official definition of poverty adopted in the US. We calculated an alternative harmonized figure for the US national poverty using the same method as Jolliffe et al. (2022), but based instead on the official 2019 poverty rate – as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau.

You can see in detail how we calculated this poverty line in this Google Colabs notebook .

Jolliffe, Dean Mitchell, Daniel Gerszon Mahler, Christoph Lakner, Aziz Atamanov, and Samuel Kofi Tetteh Baah. 2022. Assessing the Impact of the 2017 PPPs on the International Poverty Line and Global Poverty. The World Bank. Available to read at the World Bank here .

Because there is no global survey of incomes, researchers need to rely on available national surveys. Such surveys are designed with cross-country comparability in mind, but because the surveys reflect the circumstances and priorities of individual countries at the time of the survey, there are some important differences. In collating this survey data the World Bank takes steps to harmonize it where possible, but comparability issues remain.

One important issue is that, whilst in most high-income countries the surveys capture people’s incomes, in poorer countries these surveys tend to capture people’s consumption. The two concepts are closely related: the income of a household equals their consumption plus any saving, or minus any borrowing or spending out of savings.

To help communicate the latter, the World Bank produces a variable that groups surveys within each individual country into more comparable ‘spells’ (which we include in our data download ). Our Data Explorer provides the option of viewing the data with these breaks in comparability indicated.

The international-$ is a hypothetical currency that results from price adjustments across time and place. It is defined as having the same purchasing power as one US-$ in a given base year – in this case 2017. One int.-$ buys the same quantity of goods and services no matter where or when it is spent. There are many challenges to making such adjustments and they are far from perfect. But in a world where price differences across countries and over time are large it is important to attempt to account for these differences as well as possible, and this is what these adjustments do. Read more in our article From $1.90 to $2.15 a day: the updated International Poverty Line .

​​According to World Bank data, in 1990 there were 2.00 billion people living in poverty, and in 2019 that had fallen to 0.648 billion. The average fall over the 29 years in between is: (2.00 billion – 0.648 billion)/29 = 46.6 million. Dividing by the number of days (29 x 365) gives the average daily fall: (2.00 billion – 0.648 billion)/(29 x 365) = 128,000. (All figures rounded to 3 significant figures).

The projections are generally made on the assumption that incomes or expenditure grow in line with the growth rates observed in national accounts data. You can read more about the interpolation methods used by the World Bank in Chapter 5 of the Poverty and Inequality Platform Methodology Handbook.

We use the figures presented in the World Bank’s Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2022 report. Earlier estimates were also published in Lakner, C., Mahler, D.G., Negre, M. et al. How much does reducing inequality matter for global poverty?. J Econ Inequal (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10888-021-09510-w . Available online here .

Earlier estimates were also published in Lakner, C., Mahler, D.G., Negre, M. et al. How much does reducing inequality matter for global poverty?. J Econ Inequal (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10888-021-09510-w . Available online here .

The figures are taken from a World Bank blog post by Nishant Yonzan, Christoph Lakner and Daniel Gerszon Mahler. The post builds on and updates the estimates published by Lakner et al. (2022).In September 2022, the World Bank changed from using 2011 international-$ to 2017 international-$ in the measurement of global poverty. The International Poverty Line used by the World Bank and the UN to define extreme poverty was accordingly updated from $1.90 a day (in 2011 prices) to $2.15 (in 2017 prices).In order to match up to the projected figures, the extreme poverty estimates shown here relate to a previous release of the World Bank’s data using data expressed in 2011 prices, which vary slightly from the latest data in 2017 prices. You can read more about this change and how it affected the World Bank estimates of poverty in our article From $1.90 to $2.15 a day: the updated International Poverty Line .Lakner, C., Mahler, D.G., Negre, M. et al. How much does reducing inequality matter for global poverty?. J Econ Inequal (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10888-021-09510-w . Available online here .

We use the figures provided in the blog post, which extend the methods presented in Lakner et al. (2022).Lakner, C., Mahler, D.G., Negre, M. et al. How much does reducing inequality matter for global poverty?. J Econ Inequal (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10888-021-09510-w . Available online here .

Shown are those countries with a decline of more than 30 percentage points over a period of 15 years or more.There are a number of ways in which comparability across the different household surveys on which this data is based can be limited. These affect comparisons both across countries and within individual countries over time.The World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Platform Methodology Handbook provides a good summary of the comparability and data quality issues affecting this data and how it tries to address them. In collating this survey data the World Bank takes a range of steps to harmonize it where possible, but comparability issues remain. To help communicate the latter, the World Bank produces a variable that groups surveys within each individual country into more comparable ‘spells’. Our Data Explorer provides the option of viewing the data with these breaks in comparability indicated.

You can read more about how the World Bank sets these higher poverty lines, as well as the International Poverty Line against which it measures extreme poverty, in our article From $1.90 to $2.15 a day: the updated International Poverty Line . To the three poverty lines adopted officially by the World Bank – $2.15, $3.65 and $6.85 – we add a higher line broadly consistent with definitions of poverty in high income countries. See our article Global poverty in an unequal world: Who is considered poor in a rich country? And what does this mean for our understanding of global poverty?

For details of the methods used to produce the long-run poverty data see, Moatsos, M. (2021). Global extreme poverty: Present and past since 1820. In van Zanden, Rijpma, Malinowski and Mira d’Ercole (eds.) How Was Life? Volume II: New Perspectives on Well-Being and Global Inequality since 1820. Available from the OECD here .

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March 2023 global poverty update from the World Bank: the challenge of estimating poverty in the pandemic

Samuel kofi tetteh baah, r. andres castaneda aguilar, carolina diaz-bonilla, christoph lakner, minh cong nguyen, martha viveros.

Global poverty estimates were updated today on the  Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP) . This update includes new regional poverty aggregates in 2020 and 2021 for Latin America and the Caribbean, and in 2020 for Europe and Central Asia, and the group of advanced countries. These are the regions for which we now have sufficient survey data available during the COVID-19 pandemic. In total, 113 new country-years have been added, bringing the total number of surveys to more than 2,100.

This update also incorporates the usual changes to the input data, including revisions to existing welfare distributions, the inclusion of new welfare distributions, and revisions to price, national accounts, and population data used for global poverty monitoring (more details  here ). Overall, these changes have resulted in minor revisions in global and regional poverty estimates.

Table 1 summarizes the revisions to the regional and global poverty estimates between the September 2022 data vintage and the March 2023 data vintage for the 2019 reference year at all three poverty lines. The global poverty headcount ratio at $2.15 is revised slightly up by 0.1 percentage points to 8.5 percent, resulting in a revision in the number of poor people from 648 to 659 million. This revision represents 11 million more people living in extreme poverty, largely driven by South Asia (5 million) and the Middle East and North Africa (4 million).

Table 1 Poverty estimates for reference year 2019, changes between September 2022 and March 2023 vintage by region and poverty lines

Similar limited changes in poverty estimates are observed at the higher lines of $3.65 and $6.85, which are typically used for measuring poverty in lower-middle- and upper-middle-income countries, respectively. At $3.65, the global poverty headcount ratio increases by 0.1 percentage points to 23.6 percent, representing 28 million more people living in poverty. At $6.85, the global poverty rate increases by 0.2 percentage points to 46.9 percent, representing 44 million people living in poverty. The upward revisions in poverty estimates at the higher lines are largely driven by South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. 

This March 2023 global poverty update from the World Bank revises the previously published global and regional estimates from 1981 to 2019. Regional poverty estimates are now reported up to 2021, depending on sufficient data coverage over the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Poverty data are reported for Europe and Central Asia until 2020, and Latin America and the Caribbean until 2021. For all other developing regions, poverty data are reported for pre-pandemic years (see Figure 1). More details are available  here on how we have determined those regions for which to report post-2019 estimates.

Figure 1: Global and regional poverty estimates, 1990 - 2021

The data published in this PIP update, while incorporating more recent input data, do not change the overall perceptions about global poverty trends and the regional distribution of poverty. It is still the case that global poverty has been falling since the 1990s, and at a slower rate since 2014 ( World Bank 2022 ). Extreme poverty has been falling in all regions, except the Middle East and North Africa due to conflict and fragility ( World Bank 2020 ). Roughly 60% of the world’s extreme poor in 2019 lived in Sub-Saharan Africa alone, while 81% of the global poor at the poverty line of $3.65 lived in Sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia. 

The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the UK Government through the Data and Evidence for Tackling Extreme Poverty (DEEP) Research Program.

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Economist, Global Poverty and Inequality Data (GPID), Development Data Group, World Bank

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The World Bank Group is committed to fighting poverty in all its dimensions. We use the latest data, evidence and analysis to help countries develop policies to improve people's lives, with a focus on the poorest and most vulnerable.

Around 700 million people live on less than $2.15 per day, the extreme poverty line. Extreme poverty remains concentrated in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, fragile and conflict-affected areas, and rural areas.

After decades of progress, the pace of global poverty reduction began to slow by 2015, in tandem with subdued economic growth. The Sustainable Development Goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030 remains out of reach.

Global poverty reduction was dealt a severe blow by the COVID-19 pandemic and a series of major shocks during 2020-22, causing three years of lost progress. Low-income countries were most impacted and have yet to recover. In 2022, a total of 712 million people globally were living in extreme poverty, an increase of 23 million people compared to 2019. 

We cannot reduce poverty and inequality without also addressing intertwined global challenges, including slow economic growth, fragility and conflict, and climate change.

Climate change is hindering poverty reduction and is a major threat going forward. The lives and livelihoods of poor people are the most vulnerable to climate-related risks.

Millions of households are pushed into, or trapped in, poverty by natural disasters every year. Higher temperatures are already reducing productivity in Africa and Latin America, and will further depress economic growth, especially in the world’s poorest regions.

Eradicating poverty requires tackling its many dimensions. Countries cannot adequately address poverty without also improving people’s well-being in a comprehensive way, including through more equitable access to health, education, and basic infrastructure and services, including digital.

Policymakers must intensify efforts to grow their economies in a way that creates high quality jobs and employment, while protecting the most vulnerable.

Jobs and employment are the surest way to reduce poverty and inequality. Impact is further multiplied in communities and across generations by empowering women and girls, and young people.

Last Updated: Apr 02, 2024

Closing the gaps between policy aspiration and attainment

Too often, there is a wide gap between policies as articulated and their attainment in practice—between what citizens rightfully expect, and what they experience daily. Policy aspirations can be laudable, but there is likely to be considerable variation in the extent to which they can be realized, and in which groups benefit from them. For example, at the local level, those who have the least influence in a community might not be able to access basic services. It is critical to forge implementation strategies that can rapidly and flexibly respond to close the gaps.

Enhancing learning, improving data

From information gathered in household surveys to pixels captured by satellite images, data can inform policies and spur economic activity, serving as a powerful weapon in the fight against poverty. More data is available today than ever before, yet its value is largely untapped. Data is also a double-edged sword, requiring a social contract that builds trust by protecting people against misuse and harm, and works toward equal access and representation.

Investing in preparedness and prevention

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that years of progress in reducing poverty can quickly disappear when a crisis strikes. Prevention measures often have low political payoff, with little credit given for disasters averted. Over time, populations with no lived experience of calamity can become complacent, presuming that such risks have been eliminated or can readily be addressed if they happen. COVID-19, together with climate change and enduring conflicts, reminds us of the importance of investing in preparedness and prevention measures comprehensively and proactively.

Expanding cooperation and coordination

Contributing to and maintaining public goods require extensive cooperation and coordination. This is crucial for promoting widespread learning and improving the data-driven foundations of policymaking. It is also important for forming a sense of shared solidarity during crises and ensuring that the difficult policy choices by officials are both trusted and trustworthy.

Overall, with more than 60 percent of the world’s extreme poor living in middle-income countries, we cannot focus solely on low-income countries if we want to end extreme poverty. We need to focus on the poorest people, regardless of where they live, and work with countries at all income levels to invest in their well-being and their future.

The goal to end extreme poverty works hand in hand with the World Bank Group’s goal to promote shared prosperity. Boosting shared prosperity broadly translates into improving the welfare of the least well-off in each country and includes a strong emphasis on tackling persistent inequalities that keep people in poverty from generation to generation.

Our work at the World Bank Group is based on strong country-led programs to improve living conditions—to drive growth, raise median incomes, create jobs, fully incorporate women and young people into economies, address environmental and climate challenges, and support stronger, more stable economies for everyone.

We continue to work closely with countries to help them find the best ways to improve the lives of their least advantaged citizens.

Last Updated: Oct 17, 2023

How the Pandemic Drove Increases in Poverty | Poverty & Shared Prosperity 2022

Around the bank group.

Find out what the World Bank Group's branches are doing to reduce poverty.

STAY CONNECTED

COVID-19 Dealt a Historic Blow to Poverty Reduction

The 2022 Poverty and Prosperity Report provides the first comprehensive analysis of the pandemic’s toll on poverty in developing countries and of the role of fiscal policy in protecting vulnerable groups.

Umbrella Facility for Poverty and Equity

The Umbrella Facility for Poverty and Equity (UFPE) is the first global trust fund to support the cross-cutting poverty and equity agenda.

IDA: Our Fund for the Poorest

The International Development Association (IDA) aims to reduce poverty by providing funding for programs that boost economic growth.

As the World Bank’s behavioral sciences team within the Poverty and Equity Global Practice, eMBeD uses behavioral sciences to fight global poverty and reduce inequality.

High-Frequency Monitoring Systems to Track the Impacts of COVID-19

The World Bank and partners are monitoring the crisis and the socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 through a series of high-frequency phone surveys.

An Adjustment to Global Poverty Lines

The World Bank uses purchasing power parities (PPPs) to estimate global poverty. With the release of 2017 PPPs, we’ll start using in Fall 2022 new poverty lines to determine the share of the world population in poverty.

Systematic Country Diagnostics

The SCD looks at issues in countries and seeks to identify barriers and opportunities for sustainable poverty reduction.

Poverty Podcast

Join us and poverty specialists as we explore the latest data and research on poverty reduction, shared prosperity, and equity around the globe in this new World Bank Group podcast series.

Correcting Course to Accelerate Poverty Reduction

Mari Pangestu, World Bank Managing Director of Development Policy and Partnerships, speaks about how we must respond to current challenges in ways that do not further impoverish the poor today and focus on creating ...

Stepping Up the Fight Against Extreme Poverty

To avert the risk of more backsliding, policymakers must put everything they can into the effort to end extreme poverty.

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1 (page 1) p. 1 Introduction

• Published: July 2018
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Poverty is a global issue. There are people in every country with a standard of living that is significantly lower than that of others. Nevertheless, the absolute number of people living in poverty has decreased since 1990, especially in the poorest countries in the world. Therefore, there is reason to hope that further poverty reduction can occur. The Introduction outlines the pervasiveness and trends in poverty around the world; the many different causes of poverty that embed themselves in social, political, economic, educational, and technological processes, which affect all of us from birth to death; and considers why poverty matters. Overall, the economy suffers if systematic public policy does not address poverty.

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5 Essays About Poverty Everyone Should Know

Poverty is one of the driving forces of inequality in the world. Between 1990-2015, much progress was made. The number of people living on less than $1.90 went from 36% to 10%. However, according to the World Bank , the COVID-19 pandemic represents a serious problem that disproportionately impacts the poor. Research released in February of 2020 shows that by 2030, up to ⅔ of the “global extreme poor” will be living in conflict-affected and fragile economies. Poverty will remain a major human rights issue for decades to come. Here are five essays about the issue that everyone should know:

“We need an economic bill of rights” –  Martin Luther King Jr.

The Guardian published an abridged version of this essay in 2018, which was originally released in Look magazine just after Dr. King was killed. In this piece, Dr. King explains why an economic bill of rights is necessary. He points out that while mass unemployment within the black community is a “social problem,” it’s a “depression” in the white community. An economic bill of rights would give a job to everyone who wants one and who can work. It would also give an income to those who can’t work. Dr. King affirms his commitment to non-violence. He’s fully aware that tensions are high. He quotes a spiritual, writing “timing is winding up.” Even while the nation progresses, poverty is getting worse.

This essay was reprinted and abridged in The Guardian in an arrangement with The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King. Jr. The most visible representative of the Civil Rights Movement beginning in 1955, Dr. King was assassinated in 1968. His essays and speeches remain timely.

“How Poverty Can Follow Children Into Adulthood” – Priyanka Boghani

This article is from 2017, but it’s more relevant than ever because it was written when 2012 was the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. That’s no longer the case. In 2012, around ¼ American children were in poverty. Five years later, children were still more likely than adults to be poor. This is especially true for children of colour. Consequences of poverty include anxiety, hunger, and homelessness. This essay also looks at the long-term consequences that come from growing up in poverty. A child can develop health problems that affect them in adulthood. Poverty can also harm a child’s brain development. Being aware of how poverty affects children and follows them into adulthood is essential as the world deals with the economic fallout from the pandemic.

Priyanka Boghani is a journalist at PBS Frontline. She focuses on U.S. foreign policy, humanitarian crises, and conflicts in the Middle East. She also assists in managing Frontline’s social accounts.

“5 Reasons COVID-19 Will Impact the Fight to End Extreme Poverty” – Leah Rodriguez

For decades, the UN has attempted to end extreme poverty. In the face of the novel coronavirus outbreak, new challenges threaten the fight against poverty. In this essay, Dr. Natalie Linos, a Harvard social epidemiologist, urges the world to have a “social conversation” about how the disease impacts poverty and inequality. If nothing is done, it’s unlikely that the UN will meet its Global Goals by 2030. Poverty and COVID-19 intersect in five key ways. For one, low-income people are more vulnerable to disease. They also don’t have equal access to healthcare or job stability. This piece provides a clear, concise summary of why this outbreak is especially concerning for the global poor.

Leah Rodriguez’s writing at Global Citizen focuses on women, girls, water, and sanitation. She’s also worked as a web producer and homepage editor for New York Magazine’s The Cut.

“Climate apartheid”: World’s poor to suffer most from disasters” – Al Jazeera and news Agencies

The consequences of climate change are well-known to experts like Philip Alston, the special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. In 2019, he submitted a report to the UN Human Rights Council sounding the alarm on how climate change will devastate the poor. While the wealthy will be able to pay their way out of devastation, the poor will not. This will end up creating a “climate apartheid.” Alston states that if climate change isn’t addressed, it will undo the last five decades of progress in poverty education, as well as global health and development .

“Nickel and Dimed: On (not) getting by in America” – Barbara Ehrenreich

In this excerpt from her book Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich describes her experience choosing to live undercover as an “unskilled worker” in the US. She wanted to investigate the impact the 1996 welfare reform act had on the working poor. Released in 2001, the events take place between the spring of 1998 and the summer of 2000. Ehrenreich decided to live in a town close to her “real life” and finds a place to live and a job. She has her eyes opened to the challenges and “special costs” of being poor. In 2019, The Guardian ranked the book 13th on their list of 100 best books of the 21st century.

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of 21 books and an activist. She’s worked as an award-winning columnist and essayist.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere

Eradicating extreme poverty for all people everywhere by 2030 is a pivotal goal of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Extreme poverty, defined as surviving on less than $2.15 per person per day at 2017 purchasing power parity, has witnessed remarkable declines over recent decades.

However, the emergence of COVID-19 marked a turning point, reversing these gains as the number of individuals living in extreme poverty increased for the first time in a generation by almost 90 million over previous predictions.

Even prior to the pandemic, the momentum of poverty reduction was slowing down. By the end of 2022, nowcasting suggested that 8.4 per cent of the world’s population, or as many as 670 million people, could still be living in extreme poverty. This setback effectively erased approximately three years of progress in poverty alleviation.

If current patterns persist, an estimated 7% of the global population – around 575 million people – could still find themselves trapped in extreme poverty by 2030, with a significant concentration in sub-Saharan Africa.

A shocking revelation is the resurgence of hunger levels to those last observed in 2005. Equally concerning is the persistent increase in food prices across a larger number of countries compared to the period from 2015 to 2019. This dual challenge of poverty and food security poses a critical global concern.

Why is there so much poverty

Poverty has many dimensions, but its causes include unemployment, social exclusion, and high vulnerability of certain populations to disasters, diseases and other phenomena which prevent them from being productive.

Why should I care about other people’s economic situation?

There are many reasons, but in short, because as human beings, our well- being is linked to each other. Growing inequality is detrimental to economic growth and undermines social cohesion, increas- ing political and social tensions and, in some circumstances, driving instability and conflicts.

Why is social protection so important?

Strong social protection systems are essential for mitigating the effects and preventing many people from falling into poverty. The COVID-19 pandemic had both immediate and long-term economic consequences for people across the globe – and despite the expansion of social protection during the COVID-19 crisis, 55 per cent of the world’s population – about 4 billion people – are entirely unprotected.

In response to the cost-of-living crisis, 105 countries and territories announced almost 350 social protection measures between February 2022 and February 2023. Yet 80 per cent of these were short-term in nature, and to achieve the Goals, countries will need to implement nationally appropriate universal and sustainble social protection systems for all.

What can I do about it?

Your active engagement in policymaking can make a difference in addressing poverty. It ensures that your rights are promoted and that your voice is heard, that inter-generational knowledge is shared, and that innovation and critical thinking are encouraged at all ages to support transformational change in people’s lives and communities.

Governments can help create an enabling environment to generate pro- productive employment and job opportunities for the poor and the marginalized.

The private sector has a major role to play in determining whether the growth it creates is inclusive and contributes to poverty reduction. It can promote economic opportunities for the poor.

The contribution of science to end poverty has been significant. For example, it has enabled access to safe drinking water, reduced deaths caused by water-borne diseases, and improved hygiene to reduce health risks related to unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation.

Facts and Figures

Goal 1 targets.

• If current trends continue, 575 million people will still be living in extreme poverty and only one-third of countries will have halved their national poverty levels by 2030.
• Despite the expansion of social protection during the COVID-19 crisis, over 4 billion people remain entirely unprotected. Many of the world’s vulnerable population groups, including the young and the elderly, remain uncovered by statutory social protection programmes.
• The share of government spending on essential services, such as education, health and social protection, is significantly higher in advanced economies than in emerging and developing economies.
• A surge in action and investment to enhance economic opportunities, improve education and extend social protection to all, particularly the most excluded, is crucial to delivering on the central commitment to end poverty and leave no one behind.
• The global poverty headcount ratio at $2.15 is revised slightly up by 0.1 percentage points to 8.5 percent, resulting in a revision in the number of poor people from 648 to 659 million. ( World Bank)

Source: The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2023 

1.1  By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than $2.15 a day

1.2 By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions

1.3  Implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable

1.4 By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services, including microfinance

1.5  By 2030, build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental shocks and disasters

1.A  Ensure significant mobilization of resources from a variety of sources, including through enhanced development cooperation, in order to provide adequate and predictable means for developing countries, in particular least developed countries, to implement programmes and policies to end poverty in all its dimensions

1.B  Create sound policy frameworks at the national, regional and international levels, based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive development strategies, to support accelerated investment in poverty eradication actions

• United Nations Development Programme
• UN Children’s Fund
• International Monetary Fund
• UN Global Compact
• UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction

Fast Facts: No Poverty

Infographic: No Poverty

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Poverty and Inequality in the World, Essay Example

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Poverty and inequality are two matters at all times influencing one another. Undoubtedly, where there is poverty there is also inequality happening on a social level.  These two terms, applied when discussing society in its entirety, are utilized to describe how inequality on an economical level affects social statuses, making room for let us say lucky groups, the ones able to afford almost anything and the unlucky, those who can barely make it from one day to another. Thereof, these two terms describe the cause and effect of the economic system, however complex it might be.

The main actors included in this process are, actually, the people living in the society and, also, the system at work in the society, by means of which people can or cannot get advantage insofar as to make their lives better. The actors included in the inequality process are, therefore, people on the one hand and, on the other hand, the economic system active in a particular society. This is exactly why the matter could not be discussed generally, but applied to each country in part.

The main focus of each scholar is that of identifying the most efficient strategies by means of each poverty to be avoided and inequality disposed of. However, given the complexity of the problem and the variety of variables which influence it, my standpoint is that no general strategy can be found, no strategy which, if applied anywhere, could solve such a sensitive matter. More precisely, distinct solutions should be sought and applied, afterwards, in each country in part.  I do not ignore the fact that relevant insights could be derived from one country which could aid solve the problem in another country, but that is not, under no circumstance, enough. In other words, global citizenship philosophy should be understood as the point of departure for the struggle of highlighting the efficient solutions towards eliminating inequality in societies.

Thereof, the main question I wish to bring to debate is that of identifying whether it would be more relevant that a united team of researchers would study a corpus of distinct societies in order to put together a strategy which would help eliminate inequality or that the same team of researchers would study the same country and its society, irrespective of the other insights derived from distinct societies, with the same scope. This question parts from the discussions in ”Globalization. A very short introduction”, by Manferd B. Steger. This made me realize that such a scope implies a numerous of variables to be taken into consideration and, however, contextualization, especially at a time in which globalization is rapidly escalating.

Probably, the most important aspect of such a research consists of the capabilities of the specialists of identifying the exact characteristics of each society in part which would affect, in any way, the rise of inequality. The presupposition stands clear. Each society has characteristics that influence the economic process, some of which are the great historical moments it went through, the collective mentality, the political system, the social intake of the differences between people, from the ways in which one can go from one social status to another until the way in which women are being viewed in comparison to men. Thereof, the question I propose stands relevant from the point of view that the strategy which, for example, would be applicable in a society in which women are expected to be paid far less than men occupying the very same positions would not be efficient in a society in which women are already highly emancipated and are not expected to be stay-at-home mothers for a long period of time.

Steger, B. “Manfred. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction.”

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The top 11 causes of poverty around the world

Feb 3, 2022

Approximately 10% of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty. But why? Updated for 2022, we look at 11 of the top causes of poverty around the world.

For most of us, living on less than $2 a day seems far removed from reality. But it  is  the reality for roughly 800 million people around the globe. Approximately 10% of the global population lives in extreme poverty, meaning that they're living below the poverty line of $1.90 per day.

There is some good news: In 1990, that figure was 1.8 billion people. We've made progress. But in the last few years we've also begun to move backwards — in 2019, estimates were closer to 600 million people living in extreme poverty. Climate change and conflict have both hindered progress. The global economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic only made matters worse.

There’s no one single solution to poverty . There isn't a single cause of poverty, either. In fact, most cases of poverty in 2022 are the result of a combination of factors. Understanding what these factors are and how they work together is a critical step to sustainably ending poverty.

Learn more about the causes of poverty — and how we're solving them

1. inequality.

Let's start with something both simple and complex: Inequality is easy enough to understand as a concept. When one group has fewer rights and resources based on an aspect of their identity compared to others in a community, that's inequality. This marginalization could be based on caste, ability, age, health, social status or — most common and most pervasive — gender.

How inequality functions as a cause of poverty, however, is a bit more multifaceted. When people are given fewer rights or assets based on their ethnicity or tribal affiliation, that means they have fewer opportunities to move ahead in life. We see this often in gender inequality , especially when women have fewer rights around their health and economic power. In this case, equality isn't even relative. It doesn't matter that someone has more.  What matters is that someone else doesn't have enough.

This is especially harmful when inequality is combined with risk — which is the basic formula we use at Concern to understand the cycle of poverty . A widow raising a family of five won't have the same resources available to her husband. If she lives in an area vulnerable to the effects of climate change, that puts pressure on what few  resources she has. In some countries, this is the rule rather than the exception.

To address inequality, we must consider all groups in a community. What's more, to build equality we have to consider equality of results, as opposed to equality of resources.

2. Conflict

If poverty is caused by inequality multiplied by risk, let's talk about risks. At the top of the list of risks for poverty is conflict . Large-scale, protracted crises, such as the decade of civil war in Syria , can grind an otherwise thriving economy to a halt. As fighting continues in Syria, for example, millions have fled their homes (often with nothing but the clothes on their backs). Public infrastructure has been destroyed. Prior to 2011, as few as 10% of Syrians lived below the poverty line. Ten years later, more than 80% of Syrians now live below the poverty line.

But the nature of conflict has changed in the last few decades, and violence has become more localized. This also has a huge impact on communities, especially those that were already struggling. In some ways, it's even harder to cope as these crises go ignored in headlines and primetime news. Fighting can stretch out for years, if not decades, and leave families in a permanent state of alert. This makes it hard to plan for the long-term around family businesses, farms, or education.

3. Hunger, malnutrition, and stunting

You might think that poverty causes hunger (and you would be right!). But hunger is also a cause — and maintainer — of poverty . If a person doesn’t get enough food, they’ll lack the strength and energy needed to work. Or their immune system will weaken from malnutrition and leave them more susceptible to illness that prevents them from getting to work.

In Ethiopia, stunting contributes to GDP losses as high as 16%.

This can lead to a vicious cycle, especially for children. From womb to world, the first 1,000 days of a child’s life are key to ensuring their future health. For children born into low-income families, health is also a key asset to their breaking the cycle of poverty. However, if a mother is malnourished during pregnancy, that can be passed on to her children. The costs of malnutrition may be felt over a lifetime: Adults who were stunted as children earn, on average, 22% less than those who weren't stunted. In Ethiopia, stunting contributes to GDP losses as high as 16%.

4. Poor healthcare systems — especially for mothers and children

As we saw above with the effects of hunger, extreme poverty and poor health go hand-in-hand. In countries with weakened health systems, easily-preventable and treatable illnesses like malaria , diarrhea, and respiratory infections can be fatal. Especially for young children.

When people must travel far distances to clinics or pay for medicine, it drains already vulnerable households of money and assets. This can tip a family from poverty into extreme poverty. For women in particular, pregnancy and childbirth can be a death sentence.  Maternal health is often one of the most overlooked areas of healthcare in countries that are still built around patriarchal structures. New mothers and mothers-to-be are often barred from seeking care without their father's or husband's permission. Adolescent girls who are pregnant (especially out of wedlock) face even greater inequities and discrimination.

5. Little (or zero) access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene

Currently, more than 2 billion people don’t have access to clean water at home. This means that people collectively spend 200 million hours every day walking long distances to fetch water. That’s precious time that could be used working, or getting an education to help secure a job later in life. And if you guessed that most of these 200 million hours are shouldered by women and girls… you're correct. Water is a women's issue as well as a cause of poverty.

Contaminated water can also lead to a host of waterborne diseases, ranging from the chronic to the life-threatening. Poor water infrastructure — such as sanitation and hygiene facilities — can compound this. It can also create other barriers to escaping poverty, such as preventing girls from going to school during their cycles.

6. Climate change

Climate change causes poverty , working as an interdependent link between not only extreme poverty but also many of the other causes on this list — including hunger , conflict, inequality, and a lack of education (see below). One report from the World Bank estimates that the climate crisis has the power to push more than 100 million people into poverty over the next decade.

Many of the world’s poorest populations rely on farming or hunting and gathering to eat and earn a living. Malawi, as an example, is 80% agrarian. They often have only just enough food and assets to last through the next season, and not enough reserves to fall back on in the event of a poor harvest. So when climate change or natural disasters (including the widespread droughts caused by El Niño ) leave millions of people without food, it pushes them further into poverty, and can make recovery even more difficult.

How climate change keeps people in poverty

By 2030, climate change could force more than 100 million people into extreme poverty.

7. Lack of education

Not every person without an education is living in extreme poverty. But most adults living in extreme poverty did not receive a quality education. And, if they have children, they're likely passing that on to them. There are many barriers to education around the world , including a lack of money for uniforms and books or a cultural bias against girls’ education .

But education is often referred to as the great equalizer. That's because it can open the door to jobs and other resources and skills that a family needs to not just survive, but thrive. UNESCO estimates that 171 million people could be lifted out of extreme poverty if they left school with basic reading skills. Poverty threatens education, but education can also help end poverty .

8. Poor public works and infrastructure

What if you have to go to work, but there are no roads to get you there? Or what if heavy rains have flooded your route and made it impossible to travel? We're used to similar roadblocks (so to speak) in the United States. But usually we can rely on our local governments to step in.

A lack of infrastructure — from roads, bridges, and wells, to cables for light, cell phones, and internet — can isolate communities living in rural areas. Living off the grid often means living without the ability to go to school, work, or the market to buy and sell goods. Traveling further distances to access basic services not only takes time, it costs money, keeping families in poverty.

As we've found in the last two years, isolation limits opportunity. Without opportunity, many find it difficult, if not impossible, to escape extreme poverty.

9. Global health crises including epidemics and pandemics

Speaking of things we've learned over the last two years… A poor healthcare system that affects individuals, or even whole communities, is one cause of poverty. But a large-scale epidemic or pandemic merits its own spot on this list. COVID-19 isn't the first time a public health crisis has fueled the cycle of poverty. More localized epidemics like Ebola in West Africa (and, later, in the DRC ), cholera in Haiti or the DRC, or malaria in Sierra Leone have demonstrated how local and national governments can grind to a halt while working to stop the spread of a disease, provide resources to frontline workers and centers, and come up with contingency plans as day-to-day life is disrupted.

All of this comes, naturally, at a cost. In Guinea, Liberia , and Sierra Leone — the three countries hit hardest by the 2014-16 West African Ebola epidemic — an estimated $2.2 billion was lost across all three countries' GDPs in 2015 as a direct result of the epidemic. This included losses in the private sector, agricultural production, and international trade.

The crisis in Kenya: Climate, COVID, and hunger

The worst drought in four decades, the worst locust invasion in seven, plus the domino effects of a global pandemic have northern Kenyans living out an underreported crisis and facing an uncertain future.

10. Lack of social support systems

In the United States, we're familiar with social welfare programs that people can access if they need healthcare or food assistance. We also pay into insurances against unemployment and fund social security through our paychecks. Theses systems ensure that we have a safety net to fall back on if we lose our job or retire.

But not every government can provide this type of help to its citizens. Without that safety net, there’s nothing to stop vulnerable families from backsliding further into extreme poverty. Especially in the face of the unexpected.

11. Lack of personal safety nets

If a family or community has reserves in place, they can weather some risk. They can fall back on savings accounts or even a low-interest loan in the case of a health scare or an unexpected layoff, even if the government doesn't have support systems to cover them. Proper food storage systems can help stretch a previous harvest if a drought or natural disaster ruins the next one.

At its core, poverty is a lack of basic assets or a lack on return from what assets a person has.

People living in extreme poverty can't rely on these safety nets, however. At its core, poverty is a lack of basic assets or a lack on return from what assets a person has. This leads to negative coping mechanisms, including pulling children out of school to work (or even marry ), and selling off assets to buy food. That can help a family make it through one bad season, but not another. For communities constantly facing climate extremes or prolonged conflict, the repeated shocks can send a family reeling into extreme poverty and prevent them from ever recovering.

Solutions to Poverty to Get Us To 2030

What would Zero Poverty look like for the world in 2030? Here are a few starting points.

How can you help?

At Concern, we believe that zero poverty is possible, especially when we work with communities to address both inequalities and risks. Last year, we reached 36.9 million people with programs designed to address the specific causes of extreme poverty in countries, communities, and families.

Pictured in the banner image for this story is one of those people, Adrenise Lusa. Born 60 years ago in the DRC's Manono Territory, Adrenise joined Concern's Graduation program in 2019 and participated in trainings on income generation and entrepreneurship, which gave her ideas on how to increase her production and income. With monthly cash transfers as part of Graduation and a loan from her community Village Savings and Loans Association, she invested in a few income-generating activities including goat rearing and trading oil, maize, and cassava. Prior to joining Graduation, she had the ideas. But, as she explains, "I didn’t start these businesses because I just didn’t have enough money."

Since launching her new ventures, Adrenise has increased her income from approximately 30,000 francs per month to anywhere between 100–400,000 francs per month, depending on the season. She's used her additional income to buy a plot of land and build a new house, feed her family with more nutritious food, and send her son and daughter to university.

You can make your own impact by supporting our efforts working with the world’s poorest communities. Learn more about the other ways you can help the fight against poverty.

More about the causes of poverty

Extreme Poverty and Hunger: A Vicious Cycle

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Poverty Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on poverty essay.

“Poverty is the worst form of violence”. – Mahatma Gandhi.

How Poverty is Measured?

For measuring poverty United nations have devised two measures of poverty – Absolute & relative poverty.  Absolute poverty is used to measure poverty in developing countries like India. Relative poverty is used to measure poverty in developed countries like the USA. In absolute poverty, a line based on the minimum level of income has been created & is called a poverty line.  If per day income of a family is below this level, then it is poor or below the poverty line. If per day income of a family is above this level, then it is non-poor or above the poverty line. In India, the new poverty line is  Rs 32 in rural areas and Rs 47 in urban areas.

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Causes of Poverty

According to the Noble prize winner South African leader, Nelson Mandela – “Poverty is not natural, it is manmade”. The above statement is true as the causes of poverty are generally man-made. There are various causes of poverty but the most important is population. Rising population is putting the burden on the resources & budget of countries. Governments are finding difficult to provide food, shelter & employment to the rising population.

The other causes are- lack of education, war, natural disaster, lack of employment, lack of infrastructure, political instability, etc. For instance- lack of employment opportunities makes a person jobless & he is not able to earn enough to fulfill the basic necessities of his family & becomes poor. Lack of education compels a person for less paying jobs & it makes him poorer. Lack of infrastructure means there are no industries, banks, etc. in a country resulting in lack of employment opportunities. Natural disasters like flood, earthquake also contribute to poverty.

In some countries, especially African countries like Somalia, a long period of civil war has made poverty widespread. This is because all the resources & money is being spent in war instead of public welfare. Countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc. are prone to natural disasters like cyclone, etc. These disasters occur every year causing poverty to rise.

Ill Effects of Poverty

Poverty affects the life of a poor family. A poor person is not able to take proper food & nutrition &his capacity to work reduces. Reduced capacity to work further reduces his income, making him poorer. Children from poor family never get proper schooling & proper nutrition. They have to work to support their family & this destroys their childhood. Some of them may also involve in crimes like theft, murder, robbery, etc. A poor person remains uneducated & is forced to live under unhygienic conditions in slums. There are no proper sanitation & drinking water facility in slums & he falls ill often &  his health deteriorates. A poor person generally dies an early death. So, all social evils are related to poverty.

Government Schemes to Remove Poverty

The government of India also took several measures to eradicate poverty from India. Some of them are – creating employment opportunities , controlling population, etc. In India, about 60% of the population is still dependent on agriculture for its livelihood. Government has taken certain measures to promote agriculture in India. The government constructed certain dams & canals in our country to provide easy availability of water for irrigation. Government has also taken steps for the cheap availability of seeds & farming equipment to promote agriculture. Government is also promoting farming of cash crops like cotton, instead of food crops. In cities, the government is promoting industrialization to create more jobs. Government has also opened  ‘Ration shops’. Other measures include providing free & compulsory education for children up to 14 years of age, scholarship to deserving students from a poor background, providing subsidized houses to poor people, etc.

Poverty is a social evil, we can also contribute to control it. For example- we can simply donate old clothes to poor people, we can also sponsor the education of a poor child or we can utilize our free time by teaching poor students. Remember before wasting food, somebody is still sleeping hungry.

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What Causes Poverty in the World Report (Assessment)

Poverty rates in the world, overpopulation and world poverty, culture and world poverty, global distribution of resources: historical injustices and poverty in nations, education and unemployment, environmental degradation, inflation and development approaches, works cited.

This essay discusses the causes of poverty in the world. Poverty and related social inequality are as old as human history. Over the years, people have postulated many causes of poverty and social inequality. The many causes of poverty not withstanding, many definitions of the phenomena have been established. Whichever the definition, poverty is associated with want, lack of or deprivation of necessities in life. According to World Bank, people are individuals who survive on less than a dollar per day.

Despite the fact that living below a dollar, especially in urban areas, is an indicator of being poor, this definition does not apply in given contexts. For people living in some rural areas, the value of what they use as per their market pricing is lower than a dollar. However, considering the quality of life they live, they are better off than many others who live on more than ten dollars a day in the big cities of the world. Therefore, poverty is a complex concept and highly relative in its application or misapplication.

The world of today has the many people living in better socio-economic conditions than a century ago. However, the divide between the rich has widened over the years with the poor in the world forming an overwhelming majority. Statistics indicate that Africa carries the bulk of the poor in the world.

However, even in highly developing nations like India and China, given regions are notably highly impoverished. The impoverished regions of the world are characterized by dilapidated housing, lack of access to education, health care, frequent famines and other humanitarian disasters and catastrophes.

Due to poor infrastructure, response to problems is not efficient and effective enough thus resultant high impacts of disasters that would otherwise be averted. To understand this point better, one has to consider how a natural disaster like a tsunami of say Katrina’s magnitude would affect a third world country. The effects would be high due to poor response unlike what actually happened in the USA.

One of the major factors that have contributed to poverty in given areas of the world is overpopulation (Jones 137). The condition of having many people with fewer available resources combined with little space inevitably results in poverty. Uncontrolled birth rates, in places like Africa, have resulted in a general population boom.

The population upsurge has continually exerted pressure on available resources in the world. The available resource in given countries can only support a given number of people (McCarthy 42). One of the critical resources that support mankind is farming. A majority of people around the world depend on farming or general agriculture for sustenance. Population upsurge and resultant splitting of land into smaller pieces has led to less food production.

Culture is one of the reasons why people remain glued to practices that perpetuate poverty. For example, in some developing countries the more children one has the higher he or she is regarded in society. Cultural practices in traditional rural communities usually sanction the ability of large members of the family (Baker 154).

The governments of most third world countries give little or no attention to family planning because it goes against the cultural assumptions of the people. People anticipating to have smaller families experience difficulty in realizing this as others consider them weird (Rohr 105). Surging population rates point to even higher poverty rates in developing countries (Rohr 149).

Some thinkers have attributed poverty in some parts of the world to unequal distribution of resources. The legacy of colonialism is largely blamed for unequal resource distribution in the world economy (Baker 1).

Most of the developing countries have put more efforts to develop and strengthen their economies with technology and industries but this has been unsuccessful. The inequality in world economy due to historical events has largely hampered poverty alleviation efforts in the world (Pogge 17). Colonialists, for example, left Africa with a very weak infrastructure i.e. transport systems, power generation and communication after bludgeoning the resources of the colonies.

These happenings have derailed all aspects of moving away from poverty because the infrastructure is critical in the development of industries and expansion of the economy (Pogge 123). In recent years, wealthier countries have been accused of neocolonialism i.e. economic based dominance. This influence has enabled the wealthier countries to acquire inexpensive resources such as oil, ores and mineral from poor countries (Fields 59).

Lack of educational opportunities hampers development especially of children from rural areas (Baker 26). For the educated, lack of employment opportunities denies them an opportunity for social mobility. The rural areas in most countries of the world have high rates of illiteracy.

Illiteracy has been more severe in developing countries especially Africa south of the Sahara. Governments of poor countries have faced the inability to provide good and efficient public schools thus not marching with developments in the developing countries. Without good and sound education people fail to find a meaningful income.

Most poor people, in rural areas, forego going to school to facilitate concentration on how to make a minimal living (Iceland 79). Developing countries provide minimal employment opportunities, especially for women, which dampens the youth’s morale of going to school. When people do not work, there is no money which is earned and thus this increases high unemployment rate which in turn increases the level of poverty (Gilbert 131).

Environmental degradation in many parts of the world has led to the increase of poverty in the world. The world natural resources, which support mankind and enable growth and development, are slowly getting depleted due to unsustainable usage.

The climatic conditions have been changing gradually and natural habitats have slowly but surely been severely changed (Fields 167). Water bodies, atmosphere, forests and soils have deteriorated and this is a major cause of increasing world poverty. Global environmental degradation has led to the phenomenon of global warming.

Weather conditions are no longer steady but rather erratic and unpredictable. Over use of fertilizers and other wrong use of land has highly affected crop yield. Intensive farming or land over use, for instance, has lead to soil infertility and decrease in crop production (Fields 218).

Pollution from industries such as power production, mining, automobiles, agricultural fertilizers and chemical production has adversely affected adequate food production, availability of clean water for drinking, and facilitated destruction of natural habitats especially for aquatic beings.

Deforestation has brought environmental effects especially in developing countries where some sections of the population depend entirely on forests as source of food and wood to power their activities. Their survival efforts have largely contributed to deforestation and its related effects (Fields 225). Forests absorb pollutant and offers catchment area for water. Without forests, the rain cycle is affected leading to increased famines in the world.

Poverty in the world is linked to economic trends. Developed countries, such as the United States in the 1950s, experienced high income growth (Dudley 167). Most families doubled their income within this period. However, in 1970s and early 1990s, inflation grew steadily hence raising the cost of living.

The economic recession of the 1980s adversely affected families; the young and less educated people could not get well paying jobs to support themselves. The change of labor market in most developed countries has also further aggravated the situation of poverty in the world today (Dudley 215).

The number of well paying jobs in the manufacturing industries has declined whereas in the service and technology industries, workers have significantly increased. Most people who cannot afford college education experiences hardship in securing a well paying work hence they are locked out of social mobility.

Moreover, in most wealthy countries, many people living in poverty have increased because of the rising inequality in the way resources are distributed. For instance in the United States, 20% of the poor have got smaller percentage of the total national income whereas the wealthy have increasingly earned much higher national income of 45%.

During this period, the middle and bottom income distribution has been progressively worse as the cost of living has gone up (Kendall 67). Demographic shifts have contributed to poverty especially among the children. In the US for example, family structures have been altered significantly increasing single parenting. This has increased poverty in the world (Kendall 73).

Poverty levels have been soaring around the world despite improved economic fortunes for a minority. The major causes of world poverty are improper policies and development approaches or plans undertaken in different nations. Economic imbalance or inequalities resulting from historical injustices also maintain a world order that does not sustain all. To alleviate world poverty, issues like overpopulation, environmental degradation among other factors have to be looked into more closely.

Baker, Judy, L. Poverty Reduction and Human Development in the Caribbean: a cross- country study, Parts 63-366 . Washington: World Bank Publication.1997

Fields, Gary, S. Poverty, Inequality, and Development . Florida: CUP Archive. 1980

Gilbert, Geoffrey. World poverty: a Reference handbook, Contemporary world issues. California: ABC-CLIO. 2004

Iceland, John. Poverty in America: a handbook . California: University of California Press. 2006

Jones, Philip, W. Education, Poverty and the World Bank . New Jersey: Sense Publishers. 2006

Kendall, Diana. Sociology in Our Times . Connecticut: Cengage Learning, 2007

McCarthy, Callaghan. The Causes of Poverty . East Yorkshire: P. S. King & Son, 1908

Pogge, Thomas, Winfried, Menko. World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms . Cambridge: Polity, 2008

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IvyPanda. (2023, November 24). What Causes Poverty in the World. https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-causes-poverty-in-the-world/

"What Causes Poverty in the World." IvyPanda , 24 Nov. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/what-causes-poverty-in-the-world/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'What Causes Poverty in the World'. 24 November.

IvyPanda . 2023. "What Causes Poverty in the World." November 24, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-causes-poverty-in-the-world/.

1. IvyPanda . "What Causes Poverty in the World." November 24, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-causes-poverty-in-the-world/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "What Causes Poverty in the World." November 24, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-causes-poverty-in-the-world/.

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Essay on Poverty: Samples in 100, 200, 300 Words

• Updated on  
• Oct 14, 2023

Poverty is a deep-rooted problem that continues to affect a large portion of the world’s population today. It touches on several aspects of human life including but not limited to political, economic, and social elements. Even though there are several methods to escape poverty, still issues arise due to a lack of adequate unity among the country’s citizens. Here are some essays on poverty which will give you insights about this topic.

Table of Contents

• 1 Essay on Poverty in 100 words
• 2 Essay on Poverty in 200 words
• 3.1 Reasons Behind Poverty
• 3.2 World Poverty Conditions
• 3.3 Role of NGOs to Eradicate Poverty
• 3.4 What Can be Done by Us?

Essay on Poverty in 100 words

Poverty is defined as a state of scarcity, and the lack of material possessions to such an extreme extent that people have difficulties in fulfilling their basic needs. Robert McNamara, a former World Bank President, states that extreme poverty is limited by illiteracy, malnutrition, disease, high infant mortality rate, squalid conditions of living, and low life expectancy.

In order to eradicate poverty in a country, strict measures need to be taken on all levels. The political system needs to address this issue with utmost sincerity and strategic implementation in such a way that it improves the lives of people, especially the ones living below the poverty line. 

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Essay on Poverty in 200 words

Poverty is like a parasite that degrades its host and eventually causes a lot of damage to the host. It is basically the scarcity of basic needs that leads to an extremely degraded life and even low life expectancy. It includes a lack of food, shelter, medication, education, and other basic necessities. Poverty is a more serious circumstance where people are forced to starve. It can be caused by a variety of factors depending upon the country. 

Every country that is hit with pandemic diseases, experiences an increase in poverty rates. This is because of the fact that poor people are unable to receive adequate medical care and hence are unable to maintain their health. This renders the people powerless and even puts their liberty in jeopardy. This is because of the fact that poor people can become trapped in a vicious cycle of servitude. The condition of poverty is a distressing one that causes pain, despair, and grief in the lives of the ones it affects. 

This is also a negative scenario that prevents a child from attending basic education. It’s the lack of money that prevents people from living sufficiently. Also, it is the cause of more serious social concerns such as slavery, child labour, etc. Hence action is needed on the same with utmost sincerity. 

Essay on Poverty in 300 words

Poverty is a multifaceted concept that includes several aspects such as social aspects, political elements, economic aspects, etc. It is basically associated with undermining a variety of essential human attributes such as health, education, etc. Despite the growth and development of the economies of countries, poverty still exists in almost every one of them. 

Reasons Behind Poverty

There are several contributing reasons behind poverty in a nation. Some of them are mentioned below:-

• Lack of literacy among citizens
• Lack of Capital in the country
• Large families and a rapidly growing population
• Limited employment opportunities

There are even urban areas where the slum population is increasing. These are deprived of many basic amenities such as sanitation, drainage systems, and low-cost water supply, etc. 

World Poverty Conditions

According to UNICEF , around 22000 children lose their lives each day due to poverty. There are approximately 1.9 billion children in developing countries in the world and India is also among them. Out of these, approximately 640 million don’t have a proper shelter, 270 million are living without medical facilities, and approximately 400 million don’t have access to safe water. This worldwide situation is growing at a fast pace. 

Role of NGOs to Eradicate Poverty

The approaches by NGOs basically include helping the poor by providing various public services such as medical services etc.

They also play a major role in mobilizing the services recommended by the government. They have various approaches and strategies that directly help the poor in various ways.

What Can be Done by Us?

We help in eradicating poverty by increasing employment opportunities.

Ensuring financial services and providing the same is another such measure that can be taken.

Recognizing social entrepreneurs as people of influence, conveying to them the seriousness of this situation, and then eventually making people aware of the same is another thing that can be done. 

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Writing an essay on poverty in 200 words requires you to describe various aspects of this topic such as what causes poverty, how it affects individuals and society as a whole, etc. The condition of poverty is a distressing one that causes pain, despair, and grief in the lives of the ones it affects.

An essay on poverty may be started as follows:- Poverty is a deep-rooted problem that continues to affect a large portion of the world’s population today. It touches on several aspects of human life including but not limited to political, economic, and social elements. Even though there are several methods to escape poverty, still issues arise due to a lack of adequate unity among the country’s citizens.

Poverty in 100 words: Poverty is defined as a state of scarcity, and the lack of material possessions to such an extreme extent that people have difficulties in fulfilling their basic needs. Robert McNamara, a former World Bank President, states that extreme poverty is limited by illiteracy, malnutrition, disease, high infant mortality rate, squalid conditions of living, and low life expectancy. In order to eradicate poverty in a country, strict measures need to be taken on all levels. The political system needs to address this issue with utmost sincerity and strategic implementation in such a way that it improves the lives of people, especially the ones living below the poverty line.

For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay writing page and follow Leverage Edu .

Deepansh Gautam

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