Measuring Poverty

Note: The global poverty lines were updated in June 2025.

The international poverty line, which is used to measure extreme poverty in low-income economies, is set today at $3.00 per person per day. According to the latest data, around 1 in 10 people globally are estimated to be living in extreme poverty, a significant share of whom are in Sub-Saharan Africa or fragile and conflict-affected situations.

Nearly three-quarters of the world’s population now lives in middle-income countries. Yet almost one in five people around the world today live on less than $4.20 per day, the poverty line for lower-middle-income economies, and nearly half the global population lives on less than $8.30 per day, the poverty line for upper-middle-income economies.

Background

The international poverty line was first introduced in 1990. At that time, around 9 out of 10 people living in extreme poverty globally were in low-income economies. Since then, however, the world’s demographics have changed significantly, and today, three-quarters of the global population lives in middle-income economies.

To better capture poverty in these countries, the World Bank introduced two additional global poverty lines in 2017 – one for lower-middle-income economies and another for upper-middle-income economies.

All three global poverty lines are derived from the median national poverty lines of countries in their respective income groups. Over the years, the global poverty lines have been periodically updated, with their values adjusted upward to reflect changes in costs of living, improved measures of household consumption, and changes to national poverty lines.

To measure global poverty, the World Bank uses Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs) – conversion factors that account for relative price differences across countries. PPPs are used to convert national poverty lines, as well as the value of households’ income and consumption, to a common currency across countries.

Following the release in 2024 of a new set of PPPs based on prices collected in 2021 by the International Comparison Program, the Bank has started using the 2021 PPPs for its global poverty numbers and updated the values of the global poverty lines.

The updated global lines also reflect revised national poverty lines for many developing countries, in part due to more accurate welfare measures and more comprehensive data collected through national household surveys.

Every two years, the World Bank provides a comprehensive update on global poverty trends through the series formerly known as Poverty and Shared Prosperity, the latest version being the Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024.

Twice a year, the Bank produces Poverty and Equity Briefs that highlight poverty, shared prosperity, and inequality trends in each country. Macro Poverty Outlooks, which analyze macroeconomic and poverty developments in 149 developing countries, are also published twice a year.

The data collected via countries’ household surveys is critical to measure and monitor poverty at the national, regional, and global levels. Household surveys provide comprehensive and representative data on living conditions, help identify vulnerable groups, allow for estimates of poverty and inequality, and enable the analysis of poverty dynamics and policy impacts.

Global, regional, and country poverty results are based on data that the World Bank compiles and disseminates through the Poverty and Inequality Platform, updated twice a year.

Household surveys are also a foundational requirement for leveraging the data revolution. Their data is a required input to test and train the use of big data and AI for real-time poverty monitoring to inform decision making during times of uncertainty and crisis.

Two projects pushing the boundaries on poverty monitoring are worth highlighting. The World Bank’s Survey of Well-being via Instant Frequent Tracking (SWIFT) tool leverages mobile technology and big and small data to produce information on specific project results and on people’s consumption and income. It plays an important role in linking poverty and sector-specific indicators through affordable data collection and analysis.

The Bank also explores real-time monitoring approaches that leverage new machine learning methods and diverse data sources—including satellite imagery and mobile phone data in addition to traditional household surveys—to create more frequent estimates of poverty and welfare.