"The poverty line has increased in real terms. And with it, so have the World Bank’s estimates of extreme poverty. 125 million people who would not have been counted as extremely poor before June are now included."
I think this is a good change, but maybe would be better to leave the old standard alone in real terms and then make a new category? "the poor will always be with you"
If you look back in 200 years, poor people starving to death was simply an accepted fact of life. Today, poor people get fat. Do their lives suck? Absolutely! Just look at the craziness around housing. But in terms of resources per person available to the poor? Very few of us realize how good we've got it.
The extreme poverty line has remained essentially the same (adjusted for inflation) for a few decades. Projecting backwards in time, most people in every country used to be in extreme poverty. We are on track to eliminating extreme poverty within our lifetimes. They've adjusted the poverty line upwards. But just watch, life keeps on improving.
No, this is a good thing, assuming the overall global inflation rate (whatever that is) hasn't outpaced the increase. It's a measure of our increasing expectations for an acceptable human existence. Yes, "the poor will always be with you" unless you brutally cap individual rewards for results, but if the cutoff for "poor" 100 years ago was "literally starving to death" and the cutoff for "poor" today is "not literally starving to death" then I think that's a bar we should raise.
Sure, someday soon the global definition of extreme poverty will allow for clean water, adequate nutrition, clothing, and safe housing. Isn't this why we're doing... gestures around this?
I am not a fan of their initial "Global Income Distribution" curve. if you take the actual data at the bottom of the article and plot it; it does not make anything the resembles a standard distribution as portrayed. It could be an infographic, it could be different axis, who knows, but portraying a standard distribution is wrong if you have an outlying skew in your distribution. Everything under $40 is a standard distribution, but above $40 represents the same volume of people as the average skewing any sort of plotting.
Because the nicely shaped bell curves used in TFA are not at all what the distribution actually looks like. There is a significant right-skew. Don't miss the log-scale on x-axis in the first few graphs as well.
According TFA the number of people in extreme poverty dropped when using the old IPL value, and went up with the new value.
So politically, no NGO wants to say poverty decreased, because that might reduce urgency, and thus priority. So moving the goalposts means a 50% increase in poverty instead of a 20% decrease in poverty. Which one benefits your mission more?
That's not to say the revision of the IPL was wrong. But it does further the mission. Did the improved statistical methods trigger the IPL revision? It's hard to tell without internal world bank docs. I'll bet it did.
If you want something even more illuminating check the detailed annual report from the UN on the progress of the 2030 plan, the only measures that are consistently improving are those around governance and control not the well being of people.
> When the benchmark changes, you should ask 'why.'
The article goes into detail about why the poverty line changed. You must have skimmed past the secrion titled "How the World Bank sets the International Poverty Line".
The TLDR; is that it is at root based on the median poverty line set by the government of very poor countries (which is calculated in a complex way that is explained in footnotes and cited articles.)
At root, it isn't NGOs that caused the number to change, but it was inderectly caused by changes in how poor countries measure poverty themselves.
I’m not sure where to begin. The World Bank is not an NGO and is not funded like you think. And (to steal your phrase) TFA explains it in detail - purchasing power parity was updated so the number was updated. All in, this comment is nonsense.
Ah so the whole theory rests on “poverty numbers went up, therefore NGOs must be moving the goalposts to keep the cash flowing”, backed by nothing but your own suspicion, then wrapped in a half-baked sentence about “maybe it was legitimate” so you can claim neutrality. Got it.
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[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 50.2 ms ] threadAny other kind of adjustment (like, for example, this latest intervention by the World Bank) is political in nature.
We should disregard any statistical data whose collection is politically biased.
I think this is a good change, but maybe would be better to leave the old standard alone in real terms and then make a new category? "the poor will always be with you"
"the poor will always be with you"
If you look back in 200 years, poor people starving to death was simply an accepted fact of life. Today, poor people get fat. Do their lives suck? Absolutely! Just look at the craziness around housing. But in terms of resources per person available to the poor? Very few of us realize how good we've got it.
The extreme poverty line has remained essentially the same (adjusted for inflation) for a few decades. Projecting backwards in time, most people in every country used to be in extreme poverty. We are on track to eliminating extreme poverty within our lifetimes. They've adjusted the poverty line upwards. But just watch, life keeps on improving.
Sure, someday soon the global definition of extreme poverty will allow for clean water, adequate nutrition, clothing, and safe housing. Isn't this why we're doing... gestures around this?
For 2025 only
Global People | Dollars
1,183,873,832 | above $40
389,144,677 | $30-$40
681,087,495 | $20-$30
1,647,364,177 | $10-$20
1,134,291,724 | $7-$10
1,170,170,455 | $5-$7
1,185,828,184 | $3-$5
700,440,541 | $1-$3
107,765,635 | <$1
Because the nicely shaped bell curves used in TFA are not at all what the distribution actually looks like. There is a significant right-skew. Don't miss the log-scale on x-axis in the first few graphs as well.
According TFA the number of people in extreme poverty dropped when using the old IPL value, and went up with the new value.
So politically, no NGO wants to say poverty decreased, because that might reduce urgency, and thus priority. So moving the goalposts means a 50% increase in poverty instead of a 20% decrease in poverty. Which one benefits your mission more?
That's not to say the revision of the IPL was wrong. But it does further the mission. Did the improved statistical methods trigger the IPL revision? It's hard to tell without internal world bank docs. I'll bet it did.
A friend of mine once said
"If the problem weren't so valuable, they would have solved it by now"
The article goes into detail about why the poverty line changed. You must have skimmed past the secrion titled "How the World Bank sets the International Poverty Line".
The TLDR; is that it is at root based on the median poverty line set by the government of very poor countries (which is calculated in a complex way that is explained in footnotes and cited articles.)
At root, it isn't NGOs that caused the number to change, but it was inderectly caused by changes in how poor countries measure poverty themselves.
However in cases of poor people and poverty there must be an ulterior motive.