Global poverty “plummeting”

A new study by two prominent economists argues that global poverty has plummeted since 1970. Maxim Pinkovskiy of MIT and Xavier Sala-i-Martin of Columbia university use the percentage of the population living on less than $1 a day (in 2000 dollars adjusted for purchasing power parity) as their benchmark. According to their article on the Vox website:

“World poverty is falling. This column presents new estimates of the world’s income distribution and suggests that world poverty is disappearing faster than previously thought. From 1970 to 2006, poverty fell by 86% in South Asia, 73% in Latin America, 39% in the Middle East, and 20% in Africa. Barring a catastrophe, there will never be more than a billion people in poverty in the future history of the world.”

Economists may argue over inequality but in relation to absolute poverty it seems hard to deny the long-term trend is for a substantial fall.