The 2010s Was An Unprecedented Decade in Poverty Reduction

Less than 700 million people are living in extreme poverty, down from 2 billion in 1980 (cr: Jon S Pezzi)

By: Jonathan Stormer Pezzi

New York — Among the political uncertainty, environmental disasters and the many conflicts the last decade had to offer, there is some good news to come out of the previous ten years.

Since 2010, the number of people living in extreme poverty has been halved from 15.7% of the world’s population, to 7.7% now. This decline comes in a forty year wave of poverty reduction unparalleled throughout recent history.

In 1980, 2 billion people were living under $1.90 a day. That number is now less than a billion.

Sub-Saharan Africa, the region with the highest rates of poverty, saw a twenty point decline in the last decade, now 41.4%.

The good news doesn’t stop there. Per a Brookings report released in late 2018, more than half the world is now living in the middle class or above.

With this reduction, many other factors in quality of life have felt this wind of progress as well. In a report on the world’s poorest countries, The World Bank released, “Child mortality declined from nearly 14% to 7%. Access to electricity increased by 57% and the share of people using at least basic drinking water and sanitation services increased by 22% and 41%, respectively, among other results.”

The World Bank has also committed an additional $82 Billion to the International Development Bank. This news is encouraging and should be celebrated However, more needs to be done.

Extreme poverty is significantly falling but still remains high in certain regions. This in conjunction with the fact that global inequality is rising shows that there is plenty of room for improvement. That being said, the 2010s did have silver linings.