

Poverty
The World Bank Group is committed to fighting poverty in all its dimensions. We use the latest evidence and analysis to help governments develop sound policies that can help the poorest in every country, and focus our investments in areas that are critical to improving lives.
Featured
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Report
From Infection to Inflation
Latin America and the Caribbean Poverty and Labor Brief.
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Country Poverty Assessment
Rising Strong: Peru Poverty and Equity Assessment
Poverty reduction in Peru has been remarkable over the past two decades. Yet today, 7 in 10 Peruvians are poor or at risk of falling into poverty.
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REPORT
Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2022: Correcting Course
Poverty and Shared Prosperity provides the latest estimates and trends in global poverty and shared prosperity.
Poverty At-A-Glance
COVID-19 marked the end of a phase of global progress in poverty reduction. For 30 years, global extreme poverty had been steadily declining, and by 2015, the global extreme-poverty rate had been cut by more than half. In the years after, poverty kept falling, but at a lower rate, in tandem with subdued global economic growth. Then, the pandemic dealt the biggest setback to the fight against global poverty since 1990.
Poverty and Shared Prosperity Series

Poverty & Shared Prosperity 2022: Correcting Course
The world is unlikely to meet the goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030 absent history-defying rates of economic growth over the remainder of this decade, according to the latest Poverty and Shared Prosperity report.
Focus Areas
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Measuring Poverty
Our target is to have no more than 3 percent of the world’s population living on just $1.90 a day by 2030.
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Inequality and Shared Prosperity
We're working to increase the incomes and welfare of the less well off.
Research
Use Our Data
- Extreme poverty, 2015-2022
- Half of the world’s poor live in just 5 countries
- The top 10 Sub-Saharan African countries that have reduced poverty the most
- Nearly 1 in 2 people worldwide lives under $5.50 a day
- The number of extremely poor people continues to rise in Sub-Saharan Africa
- More than money: Counting poverty in multiple forms
- How is poverty related to employment status?
Extreme poverty, 2015-2022
The pandemic has caused unprecedented reversals in poverty reduction that are exacerbated by rising inflation and the effects of the war in Ukraine. We estimate that these combined crises will lead to an additional 75 million to 95 million people living in extreme poverty in 2022, compared to pre-pandemic projections. Read more.
Note on global poverty lines: These estimates (from early 2022) are calculated using the US$1.90 per person per day poverty line, which was updated in September 2022 to US$2.15 per person per day. Poverty data are now expressed in 2017 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) prices, versus 2011 PPP in previous editions. The new global poverty lines of $2.15, $3.65, and $6.85 reflect the typical national poverty lines of low-income, lower-middle-income, and upper-middle-income countries in 2017 prices. New nowcast estimates at the US$2.15 poverty line will be available in October 2022. Read more.
Of the world’s 736 million extreme poor in 2015, 368 million—half of the total—lived in just 5 countries. The 5 countries with the highest number of extreme poor are (in descending order): India, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh.
To make significant continued progress towards the global target of reducing extreme poverty (those living on less than $1.90 a day) to less than 3 percent by 2030, large reductions in poverty in these five countries will be crucial. Read More.
More than half of the world’s extreme poor live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, several African countries have recently made impressive gains in reducing poverty. Read More.
Today, less than 10 percent of the world population lives in extreme poverty. Based on information about basic needs collected from 15 low-income countries, the World Bank defines the extreme poor as those living on less than $1.90 a day. However, because more people in poverty live in middle-income, rather than low-income, countries today, higher poverty lines have been introduced. These lines are $3.20 and $5.50 a day, which are more typical of poverty thresholds for middle-income countries. Read More.
Globally, extreme poverty has rapidly declined. New poverty estimates by the World Bank suggest that the number of extremely poor people — those who live on $1.90 a day or less — has fallen from 1.9 billion in 1990 to about 736 million in 2015. Read More.
Recognizing the incompleteness of the so called monetary measure of well-being, this year’s Poverty and Shared Prosperity Report proposes a multidimensional poverty measure. It adds deprivations in education (child school enrollment and adult school attainment) and access to basic infrastructure (drinking water, sanitation and electricity) to the consumption measure to construct a more complete picture of poverty. With this broader definition of poverty, many more people come into view as poor. Read More.
Globally, poverty by employment status is highest among unpaid workers (22 percent), followed by self-employment, and those out of the labor force (both 12 percent). Read More.
Experts
Global Director, Poverty and Equity Global Practice, World Bank Group
News & Events
What's New
Latest Events
In Depth
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Immersive Story
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.
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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.
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IDA: Our Fund for the Poorest
The International Development Association (IDA) aims to reduce poverty by providing funding for programs that boost economic growth.
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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.
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Blog
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.
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Systematic Country Diagnostics
The SCD looks at issues in countries and seeks to identify barriers and opportunities for sustainable poverty reduction.
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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.
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BLOG
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 ...
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BLOG
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.
Additional Resources
Related
- Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2022 Report
- The Poverty Podcast
- Fragility and Conflict: On the Front Lines of the Fight against Poverty
- Living Standards Measurement Study
- Data Collection in Fragile States : Innovations from Africa and Beyond
- Using Micro-Data to Inform Durable Solutions for internally displaced persons (IDPs)
- eMBeD: Using behavioral sciences to fight poverty and reduce inequality
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