Because the nicely shaped bell curves used in TFA are not at all what the distribution actually looks like. There is a significant right-skew. Don't miss the log-scale on x-axis in the first few graphs as well.
According TFA the number of people in extreme poverty dropped when using the old IPL value, and went up with the new value.
So politically, no NGO wants to say poverty decreased, because that might reduce urgency, and thus priority. So moving the goalposts means a 50% increase in poverty instead of a 20% decrease in poverty. Which one benefits your mission more?
That's not to say the revision of the IPL was wrong. But it does further the mission. Did the improved statistical methods trigger the IPL revision? It's hard to tell without internal world bank docs. I'll bet it did.
Because the former is a reduction in real terms. The latter is an increase in real terms. The increase from $2.15 2017 dollars to $3.00 2021 dollars is well above the inflation in that time frame. The article points this out quite explicitly:
> However, the IPL has also increased substantially, even after inflation adjustments. The poverty line has increased in real terms.
Ah so the whole theory rests on “poverty numbers went up, therefore NGOs must be moving the goalposts to keep the cash flowing”, backed by nothing but your own suspicion, then wrapped in a half-baked sentence about “maybe it was legitimate” so you can claim neutrality. Got it.
> When the benchmark changes, you should ask 'why.'
The article goes into detail about why the poverty line changed. You must have skimmed past the secrion titled "How the World Bank sets the International Poverty Line".
The TLDR; is that it is at root based on the median poverty line set by the government of very poor countries (which is calculated in a complex way that is explained in footnotes and cited articles.)
At root, it isn't NGOs that caused the number to change, but it was inderectly caused by changes in how poor countries measure poverty themselves.
If you want something even more illuminating check the detailed annual report from the UN on the progress of the 2030 plan, the only measures that are consistently improving are those around governance and control not the well being of people.
I’m not sure where to begin. The World Bank is not an NGO and is not funded like you think. And (to steal your phrase) TFA explains it in detail - purchasing power parity was updated so the number was updated. All in, this comment is nonsense.
That sounds good but makes little sense. Makes just as much sense as the people claiming there is a cure for cancer that works 100% with no side-effects but that "they" hide it because it is so profitable to treat sick people.
Your friend isn’t very smart and you’d likely be better off if you stopped quoting them. You’ve just lumped every single NGO in with a very small minority of bad ones - three seconds of research would have spared you from writing that.
I am not a fan of their initial "Global Income Distribution" curve. if you take the actual data at the bottom of the article and plot it; it does not make anything the resembles a standard distribution as portrayed. It could be an infographic, it could be different axis, who knows, but portraying a standard distribution is wrong if you have an outlying skew in your distribution. Everything under $40 is a standard distribution, but above $40 represents the same volume of people as the average skewing any sort of plotting.
I wish these numbers were percentile relative to the local economy and not in made-up "international dollars."
It means absolutely nothing that 1.1B people live on $3-5/day and a different 1.1B live on $5-7. Can you survive in the local economy on $2/day? Then $4/day is not that bad, and $7/day is doing pretty well.
I'm no international poverty economist, but I imagine lower income relative to neighboring countries would still have some effect. For instance, if a poor country suffers a famine in its staple crop, can that government and its citizens afford to import food?
That’s a fair criticism but given how the economy has globalized, people also exploit that discrepancy by hiring remote workers abroad so it’s not completely irrelevant
Never happen. Defining and measuring poverty is a sensitive topic with juked stats in every country. The UK for example, has a poverty rate of 46% for families with three or more children. The poverty rate for Pakistani households is 47%. Around 7% of the UK is considered destitute. This data is rarely discussed because it is too unpleasant, and no-one wants to connect the inability to fund the national budget with the lack of money. The US does the same with occasional outlandish claims of "lifting nn% people out of poverty" by spending on programs that usually don't last.
There should be a universal human standard to define what extreme poverty is--i.e. the amount needed to secure food, shelter, and clothing--and then that amount should be assessed country-by-country (or region-by-region) by an independent body. The number of $3 per day is well above the "basic needs" threshold in some of the poorest countries, and well below it in the US, for example.
Usually they choose a deliberately stupid measurement such as "household income below a percentage of the median wage".
This is stupid for many reasons, including (but not limited to): non-monetary, in-kind benefits being excluded, perverse outcomes such as a decline in median wages "reducing poverty" and just about guaranteed continuation of this "poverty". So left wing politicians LOVE it. It's an everlasting cudgel that can never be fixed.
"The poverty line has increased in real terms. And with it, so have the World Bank’s estimates of extreme poverty. 125 million people who would not have been counted as extremely poor before June are now included."
I think this is a good change, but maybe would be better to leave the old standard alone in real terms and then make a new category? "the poor will always be with you"
No, this is a good thing, assuming the overall global inflation rate (whatever that is) hasn't outpaced the increase. It's a measure of our increasing expectations for an acceptable human existence. Yes, "the poor will always be with you" unless you brutally cap individual rewards for results, but if the cutoff for "poor" 100 years ago was "literally starving to death" and the cutoff for "poor" today is "not literally starving to death" then I think that's a bar we should raise.
Sure, someday soon the global definition of extreme poverty will allow for clean water, adequate nutrition, clothing, and safe housing. Isn't this why we're doing... gestures around this?
If you look back in 200 years, poor people starving to death was simply an accepted fact of life. Today, poor people get fat. Do their lives suck? Absolutely! Just look at the craziness around housing. But in terms of resources per person available to the poor? Very few of us realize how good we've got it.
The extreme poverty line has remained essentially the same (adjusted for inflation) for a few decades. Projecting backwards in time, most people in every country used to be in extreme poverty. We are on track to eliminating extreme poverty within our lifetimes. They've adjusted the poverty line upwards. But just watch, life keeps on improving.
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Because the nicely shaped bell curves used in TFA are not at all what the distribution actually looks like. There is a significant right-skew. Don't miss the log-scale on x-axis in the first few graphs as well.
According TFA the number of people in extreme poverty dropped when using the old IPL value, and went up with the new value.
So politically, no NGO wants to say poverty decreased, because that might reduce urgency, and thus priority. So moving the goalposts means a 50% increase in poverty instead of a 20% decrease in poverty. Which one benefits your mission more?
That's not to say the revision of the IPL was wrong. But it does further the mission. Did the improved statistical methods trigger the IPL revision? It's hard to tell without internal world bank docs. I'll bet it did.
However in cases of poor people and poverty there must be an ulterior motive.
It’s not everyone or even a majority but because of the VC backing it’s going to be more than the general population
> However, the IPL has also increased substantially, even after inflation adjustments. The poverty line has increased in real terms.
The article goes into detail about why the poverty line changed. You must have skimmed past the secrion titled "How the World Bank sets the International Poverty Line".
The TLDR; is that it is at root based on the median poverty line set by the government of very poor countries (which is calculated in a complex way that is explained in footnotes and cited articles.)
At root, it isn't NGOs that caused the number to change, but it was inderectly caused by changes in how poor countries measure poverty themselves.
A friend of mine once said
"If the problem weren't so valuable, they would have solved it by now"
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For 2025 only
Global People | Dollars
1,183,873,832 | above $40
389,144,677 | $30-$40
681,087,495 | $20-$30
1,647,364,177 | $10-$20
1,134,291,724 | $7-$10
1,170,170,455 | $5-$7
1,185,828,184 | $3-$5
700,440,541 | $1-$3
107,765,635 | <$1
It means absolutely nothing that 1.1B people live on $3-5/day and a different 1.1B live on $5-7. Can you survive in the local economy on $2/day? Then $4/day is not that bad, and $7/day is doing pretty well.
Any other kind of adjustment (like, for example, this latest intervention by the World Bank) is political in nature.
We should disregard any statistical data whose collection is politically biased.
This is stupid for many reasons, including (but not limited to): non-monetary, in-kind benefits being excluded, perverse outcomes such as a decline in median wages "reducing poverty" and just about guaranteed continuation of this "poverty". So left wing politicians LOVE it. It's an everlasting cudgel that can never be fixed.
I think this is a good change, but maybe would be better to leave the old standard alone in real terms and then make a new category? "the poor will always be with you"
"the poor will always be with you"
Sure, someday soon the global definition of extreme poverty will allow for clean water, adequate nutrition, clothing, and safe housing. Isn't this why we're doing... gestures around this?
If you look back in 200 years, poor people starving to death was simply an accepted fact of life. Today, poor people get fat. Do their lives suck? Absolutely! Just look at the craziness around housing. But in terms of resources per person available to the poor? Very few of us realize how good we've got it.
The extreme poverty line has remained essentially the same (adjusted for inflation) for a few decades. Projecting backwards in time, most people in every country used to be in extreme poverty. We are on track to eliminating extreme poverty within our lifetimes. They've adjusted the poverty line upwards. But just watch, life keeps on improving.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/obesity-vs-gdp
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