Global Poverty

In recent years, scholars have developed a more robust method that compares incomes to the prices of essential goods (such as food, clothing and shelter) in each country.¹ Reliable data is available only for 1980-2011.² This data shows that extreme poverty increased in the 1990s, as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund imposed neoliberal structural adjustment programmes across the global South. Poverty rates declined from 2004 to 2011, but progress has been slow and shallow.

Extreme poverty is a sign of severe social dislocation, dispossession and humanitarian catastrophe. This map shows that in many parts of the world – including India, Indonesia, and much of Sub-Saharan Africa – around a third of the population are forced to live in this condition. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, almost 80% of people live in a condition of humanitarian crisis. The fact that extreme poverty remains so widespread and normalized in many parts of the world indicates serious structural problems in the world economic system.

It must be noted, however, that several countries in the global South, such as Algeria and Morocco, have extreme poverty rates that are close to zero, despite relatively modest levels of GDP per capita – in many cases outperforming much richer countries on this core indicator. This reminds us that extreme poverty is not inevitable, and can be significantly reduced or eliminated through simple policies designed to ensure universal access to human needs. 

Robust data on basic-needs poverty is not available after 2011. But data on food insecurity suggests troubling trends over the past decade.  The prevalence of moderate and severe food insecurity has increased every year since 2014, and now stands at 30% of the world population.

In particular, the rise of capitalism from the 16th century onward, and its imposition around the world by European colonizers, was associated with a dramatic decline in living standards for ordinary people. Wages fell to below subsistence, human stature deteriorated and mortality rates increased. Real improvements in human welfare only occurred around the 20th century, as political movements in the global South won independence from colonizers and as labour and socialist movements redistributed incomes and established public provisioning systems.³

This pattern is exemplified in the case of India. Research by Robert C. Allen indicates that extreme poverty in India (measured in terms of people’s access to essentials such as food, clothing and shelter) increased dramatically under British colonialism.⁴ We do not know the exact shape of the curve between the data points for 1600, 1810 and 1977, but historians believe that extreme poverty probably reached its highest point in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before recovering with the rise of the labour movement and other progressive and radical anti-colonial forces.⁵ While progress has occurred in recent decades, India’s extreme poverty rate is still higher today than it was prior to colonialism, despite considerable economic growth. As we can see in the map above, other countries in the global South have outperformed India, often by introducing public services and social protections.

This map shows the prevalence of multidimensional poverty. 33% of the surveyed population (110 countries) lives in a household that is deprived on at least one-fifth of ten weighted indicators related to basic nutrition, child survival, basic education, primary school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing and basic assets.  Nearly 70% live in households that are deprived on at least one of these indicators.

Welfare ratios draw our attention to the number of subsistence baskets that low-wage workers are able to buy. In many countries the ratio is less than one, indicating severe deprivation. The global average is 2.8, and the average in non-core nations is less than 2. Only two countries in the global South - Cuba and China - have welfare ratios greater than 4. Cuba stands out as having the highest welfare ratio in the global South, thanks in large part to public provisioning programs that ensure everyone has access to essential goods. 

Notes

Suggested citation: Sullivan, D., Hickel, J., & Zoomkawala, H. (2025). “Global poverty”, Global Inequality Project. Accessed at: https://globalinequality.org/global-poverty

1. This approach was first developed by Moatsos (2016) and Allen (2017). The most reliable figures for 2011 and for the historical period are from Allen (2020). For the period from 1980 to 2008, the best available data is from Moatsos (2021) and Sullivan, Moatsos & Hickel (2023). Scholars have recently combined these data to produce a time series of global extreme poverty from 1980 to 2011, which we use at the Global Inequality Project (see Hickel, Moatsos & Sullivan 2024). See here for a discussion of the strengths and limitations of this approach. 

2. The main dataset we use here (Moatsos 2021) also provides estimates from 1820 to 2018. However, the estimates for 1820-1979 and for post-2008 suffer from several empirical limitations, which we describe in paragraph four here. 

3. Sullivan & Hickel (2023), Bagchi (2005).

4. Allen (2020). 

5. Davis (2000), Sullivan & Hickel (2023).

6. Hickel & Sullivan (2024).