Why do different countries use different poverty lines

Is poverty absolute or relative? When we think of (one-dimensional) income poverty, should we define the threshold that separates the poor from the non-poor as the cost of purchasing a fixed basket of goods and services that allows people to meet their basic needs? Or should we instead think of it as relative deprivation: as earning or consuming less than some given proportion of the country’s average living standard? This is an old debate, and international institutions have made different choices. Whereas the European Union (through Eurostat) and the OECD typically rely on relative poverty lines – set at 50% or 60% of national median incomes – the World Bank has traditionally used an absolute poverty line, currently set at $1.90 per person per day, in 2011 PPP dollars. The World Bank’s motivation was to measure poverty across countries in a welfare-consistent way: We wanted the International Poverty Line (IPL) to correspond, as far as possible, to the same level of welfare, regardless of the country the individual lived in. PPP exchange rates were used to try to account for differences in the cost of living across countries, and the intention was that a line thus adjusted would capture the same levels of well-being, in a way that using half the median income in, say, Madagascar and the Czech Republic, never could. The specific value of the international poverty line was, by design, anchored on the poverty thresholds used by some of the world’s poorest countries (see As g...

October 26, 2022 To track progress towards its goal of In September 2022, the figure at which this poverty line is set shifted from $1.90 to $2.15. This reflects a change in the units in which the World Bank expresses its poverty and inequality data – from international dollars given in 2011 prices to international dollars given in 2017 prices. In this article we consider what the World Bank’s revised methodology means for our understanding of global poverty. We then also explain the updated methodology: what international dollars are, what the change to 2017 prices mean, and how this change affects the International Poverty Line and the World Bank’s poverty estimates. The crucial fact to know about the World Bank’s updated International Poverty Line is that, whilst the number has risen – from $1.90 to $2.15 per day – in terms of the goods and services that it affords, the value is broadly the same. This is because the units in which the old and new figures are counted have changed: the $1.90 figure was expressed in 2011 international-$, and the new figure of $2.15 is expressed in 2017 international-$. Below we explain in much more detail what international dollars are and what the change in base year means. But broadly speaking, the difference in the two units reflects inflation over time: Because prices have gone up, one 2017 international-$ buys a smaller quantity of goods and services than one 2011 international-$. This leaves the real value of the revised Internationa...

March 05, 2021 Abstract: The extremely low poverty line that the UN relies on has the advantage that it draws the attention to the very poorest people in the world. It has the disadvantage that it ignores what is happening to the incomes of the 90% of the world population who live above the extreme poverty threshold. The global poverty line that the UN relies on is based on the national poverty lines in the world’s poorest countries. In this article I ask what global poverty looks like if we rely on the notions of poverty that are common in the world’s rich countries – like Denmark, the US, or Germany. Based on the evidence I ask what our aspirations for the future of global poverty reduction might be. The data in this article uses a previous release of the World Bank’s poverty and inequality data in which incomes are expressed in 2011 international-$. The World Bank has since updated its methods, and now measures incomes in 2017 international-$. As part of this change, the International Poverty Line used to measure extreme poverty has also been updated: from $1.90 (in 2011 prices) to $2.15 (in 2017 prices). This has had little effect on our overall understanding of poverty and inequality around the world. But because of the change of units, many of the figures mentioned in this article will differ from the latest World Bank figures. In every country of the world there are people living in poverty. Even in the world’s richest countries the poorest people often live in poor...

Different countries use different poverty lines because (a) The calorie requirement of different human races is different depending on their physical condition and dietary habits. Those races which have greater height and build require higher calories. (b) The per capita income in different countries is also different i.e., per capita income is higher in developed countries as compared to developing countries.

Author and Page information • by Anup Shah • This page last updated Saturday, November 12, 2011 • This page: • To print all information (e.g. expanded side notes, shows alternative links), use the print version: • On this page: • • • • • • • • • • • • • turn good people to evil • • • • Introduction developing while the First World, industrialized nations are often developed. What does it mean to describe a nation as developing? A lack of material wealth does not necessarily mean that one is deprived. A strong economy in a developed nation doesn’t mean much when a significant percentage (even a majority) of the population is struggling to survive. Successful development can imply many things, such as (though not limited to): • An improvement in living standards and access to all basic needs such that a person has enough food, water, shelter, clothing, health, education, etc; • A stable political, social and economic environment, with associated political, social and economic freedoms, such as (though not limited to) equitable ownership of land and property; • The ability to make free and informed choices that are not coerced; • Be able to participate in a democratic environment with the ability to have a say in one’s own future; • To have the full potential for what the United Nations calls Human Development: Human development is about much more than the rise or fall of national incomes. It is about creating an environment in which people can develop their full potential an...

Global poverty is one of the most pressing problems that the world faces today. The poorest in the world are often In order to make progress against such poverty in the future, we need to understand poverty around the world today and how it has changed. On this page you can find all our data, visualizations and writing relating to poverty. This work aims to help you understand the scale of the problem today; where progress has been achieved and where it has not; what can be done to make progress against poverty in the future; and the methods behind the data on which this knowledge is based. Measuring global poverty in an unequal world There is no single definition of poverty. Our understanding of the extent of poverty and how it is changing depends on which definition we have in mind. In particular, richer and poorer countries set very different poverty lines in order to measure poverty in a way that is informative and relevant to the level of incomes of their citizens. For instance, while in the United States a person is counted as being in poverty if they live on less than roughly $24.55 per day, in Ethiopia the poverty line is set more than 10 times lower – at $2.04 per day. You can read more about how these comparable national poverty lines are calculated in this footnote. 1 To measure poverty globally, however, we need to apply a poverty line that is consistent across countries. This is the goal of the International Poverty Line of $2.15 per day – shown in red in the ...