Half of world population lives on $5.50 daily, says WB

WASHINGTON — Despite progress in reducing extreme poverty, nearly half the world’s population lives on less than $5.50 (about P295) a day, with a rising share of the poor in wealthier economies, the World Bank (WB) said on Wednesday.

The world has a population of 7.7 billion.

In a twice yearly report, the WB took a broader look at poverty to see where countries were lagging, even though the share of those living in extreme poverty — defined as earning less than $1.90 (about P102) a day — has continued to come down in recent years.

Under the expanded criteria for poverty, the WB report found the number of poor worldwide was still “unacceptably high,” while the fruits of economic growth were “shared unevenly across regions and countries.”

Even though global growth of recent years had been sluggish, total count of people in poverty declined by more than 68 million people between 2013 and 2015—“a number roughly equivalent to the population of Thailand or the United Kingdom.”

‘Unattainable good’

Despite the improvement, the report said current trends indicated the World Bank’s goal of reducing extreme poverty to less than 3 percent of the world’s population by 2030 may be unattainable.

“Particularly distressing findings are that extreme poverty is becoming entrenched in a handful of countries and that the pace of poverty reduction will soon decelerate significantly,” the report said.

At the $5.50-a-day threshold, global poverty fell to 46 percent from 67 percent between 1990 and 2015. The WB reported last month that extreme poverty had fallen to 10 percent in 2015.

With China’s rise, East Asia and the Pacific saw a 60-point drop in the poverty rate to 35 percent, but the region is unlikely to continue to achieve that pace going forward as growth has moderated.