Segueing from recognizing José Andrés and his globe-trotting efforts to feed the hungry in times of crisis, attention now will turn to the related subject of poverty. According to the World Bank , as of 2024, there were approximately 692 million people across the globe who lived below the $2.15 per day international poverty line. After September 2022's update of the international poverty line, when poverty is measured strictly through the lenses of income, countries are placed into one of the following categories based on their gross national income (GNI) per capita USD:
Low income - GNI per capita of $1,145 or less per year / $2.15 per day poverty line
Lower-middle income - GNI per capita between $1,146 and $4,515 per year / $3.65 per day poverty line
Upper-middle income - GNI per capita between $4,516 and $14,005 per year / $6.85 per day poverty line
High income - GNI per capita of $14,006 or more per year / $24.35 per day poverty line
Gapminder's Dollar Street
Quick Trip to 8 Billion Human Beings
The next Visual Capitalist graphic and table summarize global wealth distribution as of 2020. The graphic was gleaned from data compiled in the 2021 edition of the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report .
Global Wealth Distribution 2020
The "Global Wealth Distribution 2020" graphic shows the following:
55% of the world's adult population held 1.3% of the world's wealth. This group held wealth in the range of less than $10,OOO USD with a collective share of $5.5 trillion USD of the global wealth pie.
32.8% of the world's adult population held 13.7% of the world's wealth. This group held wealth in the range of $10,OOO to $100,00 USD with a collective share of $57.3 trillion USD of the global wealth pie.
11.1% of the world's adult population held 39.1% of the world's wealth. This group held wealth in the range of $100,OO1 to $1,000,000 USD with a collective share of $163.9 trillion USD of the global wealth pie.
1.1% of the world's adult population held 45.8% of the world's wealth. This group held wealth in the range of more than $1,OOO,00 USD with a collective share of $191.6 trillion USD of the global wealth pie.
Distribution Of Global Wealth 2020
Wealth Range
Percentage of Global Wealth
Amount (Share) of Global Wealth (Trillions USD)
Percentage of Adult Population
Less than $10,000 USD
1.3%
$5,500,000,000
55.0%
$10,000 to $100,000 USD
13.7%
$57,300,000,000
32.8%
$100,001 to $1,000,000 USD
39.1%
$163,900,000,000
11.1%
More than $1,000,000
45.8%
$191,600,000,000
1.1%
Total
99.9%
$418,300,000,000
100.0%
Note: The 2024 edition of the report can be located at the following link: Global Wealth Report 2024 .
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Granted, there exist different types of unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral foreign aid. The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) initiative (from 2015 to 2030), which was an offshoot of its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) initiative (from 2000 to 2015), represented a comprehensive, unified, strategic, coordinated, heuristic, and global attempt to tackle the great challenges confronting humankind in an effort "to promote prosperity while protecting the environment" simultaneously all over the world. The 2030 SDG initiative is a bold, valiant, and praiseworthy initiative.
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SDG Progress by Target
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Can the above 17 SDG challenges be met by 2030? Commencing on 01-January-2016 and ending on 31-December-2030, the SDG countdown to 2030 is in motion. Good luck! 👍 福
SDG Countdown Clock:
The following eight (of 17) selected Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) graphics provide eight unique views of the human condition. Click each of the eight icons below to see the full-size image of each goal.
If the SDG 2030 initiative must be extended again for not hitting its targets by 31-December-2030, then perhaps the initiative should be extended to the year 2063 to coincide with the African Union's Agenda 2063 initiative. (See image below and see the "Rediscovering Africa " bonus page of this website for more information about the Agenda 2063 initiative.)
To paraphrase both of them, biblical figures Moses (Deuteronomy 15:11 ) and Jesus Christ (Matthew 26:11 ) asserted that there always will be those members in society who are poor. I, for one—along with many, many others—certainly hope that Moses and Jesus Christ, one day, are proven to have been wrong in their assertions about poverty.
With 6 years remaining before 2030 arrives as of 2024, and as echoed by the late, great Professor Hans Rosling in the video immediately below, much work remains to be done before there is a realization of SDG's anti-poverty Goal 1. (Click the image immediately below to watch the full Don't Panic — End Poverty video.)
Don't Panic — End Poverty | Gapminder
Share in poverty relative to different poverty thresholds, World,
1990 to 2024
There is no universally accepted definition of poverty. Poverty not only relates to economic factors such as insufficient income, lack of assets, in particular, land; lack of access to decent jobs. Poverty also refers to social, political and cultural factors such as discrimination based on gender, ethnicity, caste, age, disability; lack of access to education, and training; bad health; lack of representation, lack of empowerment; vulnerability to shocks and crisis.
Source: International Labour Organization (ILO )
As noted in the quote above , poverty can be caused by several contributing factors. There are economic contributing factors such as low income, low education, lack of food, lack of valuable assets (such as home, land, business, stocks, and bonds ownership), and a lack of job opportunities with a decent wage. There are structural contributing factors (such as a lack of sanitation, clean drinking water, access to electricity, and a lack of access to healthcare for the household). There are institutional contributing factors whereby the institutions in society are structured in such a way so that the needs of some residents are often overlooked, discarded, or left unmet based strictly on certain traits of the inhabitants (such as race, gender, ethnicity, caste, age, disability, sexual orientation, etc.). There are human-made and naturally occurring environmental contributing factors (such as political instability and unrest, warfare, and weather events like floods, droughts, hurricanes, tsunamis, landslides, earthquakes, wildfires, etc.) all of which lead to more upheaval in the form of human displacement, material dispossession, and misery. These upheavals, in turn, lead to other undesirable effects (such as school dropouts, substance abuse, divorce, committing of crimes, etc.). There are both physical and human resources contributing factors (such as a lack of available physical capital, a lack of expertise, a lack of organizational planning, and a lack of execution skills and commitments to combat poverty). The crucial role of will power also should not be understated. The next bloc of graphics and videos provides a visual examination of world poverty.
Read (Multidimensional Poverty Measure)
Read (Poverty 1 of 3)
Read (Poverty 2 of 3)
Read (Poverty 3 of 3)
Explore (Global Hunger Index)
Explore (HungerMap LIVE Courtesy of World Food Programme)
Explore [Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) 2024 | World Food Programme]
(Related to hunger hotspots, see also, for instance, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)'s
Global Conflict Tracker for related indications of upheaval leading to incidences of human displacements, misery, and poverty.)
Explore (Global Social Progress Index)
Read (Human Development Insights)
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As a poverty-related aside, see the following video links for an exploration into what it means to be poor in the USA, that is, in one of the world's high-income countries:
The USA Census Bureau estimated that the USA had a population of close to 337.5 million inhabitants as of 2024. According to the USA Census Bureau , the USA's poverty rate equated to 11.1% with 36.8 million of its inhabitants falling below the "official" USA-established poverty level for 2023. The next graphic shows how poverty is defined in the USA. For instance, for a household consisting of 4 family members who collectively earn less than $31,200 USD per year, this particular household would be deemed to be living in poverty or not being able to comfortably afford to purchase the basic necessities required for a minimally acceptable USA standard of living.
According to the GAO 's report titled "FEDERAL LOW-INCOME PROGRAMS: Multiple Programs Target Diverse Populations and Needs," there are 82 specific federal government programs designed to help keep the USA's less fortunate or low-income members from living in poverty. The report goes on to point out that, for the year 2013 alone, these combined 82 programs cost about $756 billion USD. However, poverty still persists in the USA. It should be noted that not every low-income USA resident qualifies to participate in or benefit from most of these various 82 programs. The poverty rate in the USA would be much higher than 11.1% (as of 2023) without the existence of these various government-sponsored, safety-net, anti-poverty programs.
Alan Batchelder, in his book titled The Economics of Poverty , makes it abundantly clear that unimpeded, non-discriminatory, and non-preferential access for all members of society to physical capital in a stable and professionally managed economy is a primary key to combating poverty (coupled with the presence of a broad and diverse manufacturing base). The assumption is that employees would be earning decent wages and that employers would be maintaining safe working environments. The inherent challenges to overcome in combating poverty are these types of impediments:
How to match the skills of those who want to work to the skills required to perform various jobs . For instance, if the requirements of the job call for employees to be able to read and write on the level of a high-school graduate, then there would be few job opportunities for those adults who cannot read and write or who do not possess at least a high-school diploma. On the one hand, often, jobs exist but the job candidates do not possess the requisite skills or qualifications to fill those available jobs. On the other hand, sometimes on-the-job training is sufficient to overcome some skill deficiencies. More importantly, long-term, stable, and full-time jobs opportunities must exist in the first place.
How to match the location of the job opportunities with the location of the job seekers. For instance, if industry is booming in the southern and western regions of a given country, then those who live in the northern and eastern regions of that country would face hindered opportunities for work. To be sure, one reason why residents in rural areas relocate to urban areas is due to the fact that greater opportunities for working and earning good money tend to exist in urban areas. For those members of a given region of the country who have long-standing, generational ties to that particular region including social, family, and tangible property ties to that region, for some of them, it becomes too much of a burden and too much of a cost to suddenly leave those ties behind and relocate to another region of the country in pursuit of improved job opportunities. After all, what is the point of going through the effort and trouble of relocating to another region of the country if the job opportunities in the new region are only going to consist of temporary, part-time, and possibly low-paying work?
It is these kinds of employment mismatches that further impede or hinder the eradication of poverty.
Decent work is work which provides for the health and education of the family; which ensures their basic security in old age and adversity; and which respects their human rights at work. Decent work is not defined in terms of any fixed standard or monetary level. It varies from country to country. But everybody, everywhere, has a sense of what decent work means in terms of their own lives, and in relation to their own society.
Source: International Labour Organization (ILO )
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The next image is illustrative of a multi-pronged approach required to eradicate the existence of poverty. However, other components are equally crucial, for instance, when the World Bank concludes the following in its annual report titled World Development Report, 1980 : "The diagram is illustrative, and the policies shown are not the only determinants of poverty or of human development. As has been stressed, climate, culture, religion and natural resources all shape the environment in which development takes place and influence the choice of policies. So do political realities, administrative constraints and the world economy."
The following quote from Barber Conable, the then President of The World Bank, summarizes a holistic or a more comprehensive strategy to eradicate poverty. The quote is consistent with the Poverty and Policy Figure 5.6 image above.
A review of development experience shows that the most effective way of achieving rapid and politically sustainable improvements in the quality of life for the poor has been through a two-part strategy. The first element of the strategy is the pursuit of a pattern of growth that ensures productive use of the poor's most abundant asset labor. The second element is widespread provision to the poor of basic social services, especially primary education, primary health care, and family planning. The first component provides opportunities; the second increases the capacity of the poor to take advantage of these opportunities. The strategy must be complemented by well-targeted transfers, to help those not able to benefit from these policies, and by safety nets, to protect those who are exposed to shocks.
Although domestic policy is critical to the reduction of poverty, international assistance is needed to support countries' efforts. Simply increasing resources, however, will not solve the problem. Aid is most effective when it complements the recipients' efforts. The allocation of aid should be more closely linked to a country's commitment to pursue development programs geared to the reduction of poverty.
Source: World Development Report 1990 - Poverty
The United Nations General Assembly reached a conclusion about the eradication of poverty that is very similar to the above World Bank quote. This similar conclusion was contained in the 2021 edition of its reports titled "Extreme poverty and human rights ."
Let there be no illusions about it. There are no quick and easy solutions to solving the dual and lingering problems of poverty and hunger. If there were quick and easy solutions, then such human challenges would have been solved a long time ago. At the same time, the formidable challenge of eradicating global poverty is no reason to give up and quit simply because the task at hand has proven to be difficult to surmount.
China serves as an anti-poverty case study perhaps to be emulated. China has demonstrated proof that the challenge of poverty eradication can be met as illustrated by the next graphic.
In the instance of China meeting the poverty eradication challenge, the above graphic shows that, when using the then poverty standard of $1.90 per day, over the course of 40 years (that is, from 1978 to 2019), China's poverty rate fell from 97.5% (or 770 million residents living in poverty in 1978) to 0.6% (or 5.5 million residents living in poverty in 2019). Effectively, by 2021, China had eradicated extreme poverty based on the $1.90 per day poverty standard. However, as noted by Wikipedia.org's article titled "Poverty in China ," as of 2020, China was considered to be classified as an upper-middle-income country. When applying the then $5.50 per day poverty standard in 2020 to China, its poverty rate suddenly goes from 0.6% to around 13%.
The table below shows how, before September 2022, the international poverty line was set at $1.90 per day, and it was based on 2011's purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rate as stated in USA dollars. After September 2022, the international poverty line was set at $2.15 per day, and it was based on 2017's PPP dollars. Notice how the table gives precise dollars in the Median columns. Popular literature on poverty usually rounds the international poverty line amounts to the nearest five cents. For instance, before September 2022, $1.91 per day would get rounded to $1.90 per day (for low-income countries) and $5.47 per day would get rounded to $5.50 per day (for upper-middle income countries). In the graphic below, the "(A) 2011 PPP" column represents the international poverty line amounts in use before September 2022. The "(B) 2017 PPP" column represents the international poverty lines in use after September 2022. Again, in reality, the amounts are rounded to the nearest five cents. So, the $3.21 amount becomes $3.20 per day and the $3.63 amount becomes $3.65 per day for lower-middle-income countries before and after September 2022, respectively.
Using the then global poverty standard of $1.90 per day, how did China accomplish the astonishing feat of practically eliminating extreme poverty throughout China in the short span of 40 years? The astonishing thing about China's anti-poverty accomplishment was both the speed [of 40 years] and the scale [of 765 million fewer residents living in extreme poverty] in which China radically reduced the incidence of extreme poverty. The next graphic summarizes China's two-pillar approach to poverty reduction and, ultimately, to poverty elimination.
It is customary for each year's Annual Bruessard Award to take a moment to reflect on the big [existential] picture. That is to say, it is customary for me to stray off topic to throw in my two cents' worth, so to speak. True to custom, this year's award is no exception, but, in this instance, I have strayed away from the topic of hunger and poverty. So, in closing this 2024 edition of the Annual Bruessard Award, my two cents' worth is this: Humans should neither stop appreciating nor lose sight of the fact that they are but one of many living species floating through space and privileged to be inhabiting a miraculous, atmosphere-encased, water-endowed, air-abundant, life-supporting, blue marble of a planet called Earth.
The existential point to be made here is this: Given the vastness of the Universe, and given that miraculous but inconsequential planet Earth finds itself embedded within the larger framework of a vast Universe, humans should neither stop appreciating nor lose sight of the fact that they have a good thing going on their beloved Mother Earth. More precisely, this good thing that they have going is known as the miracle of life. Humans should not blow it. Humans, through their science and technology, should not extinguish the torch of life on Earth . There are numerous ways in which life on Earth can be terminated. God Almighty is but one of those many ways in which life on Earth can be terminated. Humans should not be the culprits who terminate life on beloved Mother Earth. Humans should not be the culprits who destroy the Earth's rather robust tree of life.
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Please visit the Rediscovering Africa bonus page for 2024's Winner.
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