Five Graphs That Will Change Your Mind About Poverty

Ask most people about global poverty, and chances are that they’ll say it is unchanged or getting worse. They're wrong: globally, poverty is about a quarter of what it was in 1990.

by Chelsea Follett
June 20, 2017

Angus Deaton, the Nobel-prize winning economist (who also sits on the advisory board of HumanProgress.org), recently reiterated his belief that on the whole the world is getting better – even if not, as he accepted, everywhere or for everyone at once. Perhaps that comes as no surprise, but the idea that the world is getting better in regards to poverty is actually a deeply unpopular view.

Ask most people about global poverty, and chances are that they’ll say it is unchanged or getting worse. A survey released late last year found that 92 per cent of Americans believe the share of the world population in extreme poverty has either increased or stayed the same over the last two decades.

Americans aren’t alone in that belief. Across all surveyed countries, an only slightly smaller majority – 87 per cent – believe that extreme poverty has risen or remained an intractable problem.

There are a number of cultural and psychological explanations for the persistence …