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Friday, December 1, 2017

India Has The Largest Chunk Of Global Poor

Starting this month, the World Bank has started reporting poverty rates for all countries using two new international poverty lines: a lower middle-income line, set at $3.20 per day, and an upper middle-income line, set at $5.50 per day.

These are in addition to the main poverty line of $1.90 per day.

The new lines are supposed to serve two purposes.

One, they account for the fact that “achieving the same set of capabilities may need a different set of goods and services in different countries” and, specifically, a costlier set in richer countries.

Second, “they allow for cross-country comparisons and benchmarking both within and across developing regions”.

Using the $1.90 line, the incidence of poverty in lower middle-income countries is 15.5%, as against 45.8% in low-income countries.

However, using the $3.20 line, 46.7% of the population of lower middle-income countries is poor.

Similarly, for upper middle-income countries, the proportion of the poor at $1.90 is just 2.3%, but at $ 5.50 it is 29.2%.


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