Billions of People Work Their Way Out of Poverty

In less than forty years, billions of people have improved their lot and made it out of extreme poverty. That’s a low bar—$1.90 per day, which is subsistence living even in low-cost economies—but it’s still a change for the better unlike anything in history.

The rolling back of poverty has been particularly remarkable in China. In 1990, 750 million Chinese lived below the international poverty line. Today, it’s less than 10 million. Most of these people still have low incomes, but the economic engine they’re a part of continues to churn. In 2019, there were 100 million households in China with wealth of more than $110,000.

The modern world order has ample flaws, but sometimes the scale of our achievement is so vast, we lose sight of it.

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Percentage of Population Living in Households Below the Global Poverty Line

Source: PovcalNet (World Bank).