Posted on 10/12/2015 7:13:43 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Despite the recent recession in the West, absolute poverty is continuing to retreat in fast-growing developing countries. The escape from poverty that was once limited to the industrialized countries of the West is also happening in "the rest."
Unfortunately, many people remain unaware of the dramatic decline in global poverty, let alone the reasons for it.
According to an announcement released this week by World Bank, "less than 10% of the world's population will be living in extreme poverty by the end of 2015."
The bank has "used a new income figure of $1.90 per day to define extreme poverty, up from $1.25. It forecasts that the proportion of the world's population in this category will fall from 12.8% in 2012 to 9.6%."
True, come the New Year, some 700 million human beings will still live in absolute poverty.
But let us put this in proper context. Grinding poverty was the norm for most ordinary people throughout human history. As recently as 1980, the World Bank estimated that 50% of the global population lived in absolute poverty.
Even in the most economically advanced parts of the world, life used to be miserable until relatively recently.
At the end of the 18th century, to give one example, France had the fourth highest standard of living of any country in the world, behind the U.S., Great Britain and the Netherlands.
Yet, 10 million of France's 23 million people relied on some sort of public or private charity to survive, and 3 million were full-time beggars.
Before the industrial revolution, people on farms, including children, spent their lives engaged in back-breaking manual labor and consumed most of the calories they produced.
There was little time or energy for learning and relaxation. Few people ever left their native villages and visited the nearest town.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
‘Poverty’ isn’t measured in absolute units, rather in relative ones. A modern beggar is richer than most X-th century Germanic free people. Just compare the values of metal things now and then.
Once a society has clean running water and reliable electricity it is no longer “poor”.
the problem is that the GOP could single handedly wipe out poverty, and the MSM would NEVER admit it or even report on it UNLESS to give cre4dit to democrats falsely
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