> What we consider 'basic needs' must be vastly different.
1.26 a day is 37.8$ a month. I don't know about you, but in all of the places I know, such a person would barely be able to afford food, let alone shelter, replacement clothing, petrol and insurance for travel
You can't simply apply rich industrial country standards to that. $1.25 is a global average (which by the way lately has been increased to $1.90). In developing countries $1.26 might be enough to get by.
> The increase of social welfare safety nets.
Those safety nets for the most part again only exist in industrialised countries. The reduction of poverty in recent decades however is accounted for mostly by developing countries, which typically don't have that kind of system.
1.26 a day is 37.8$ a month. I don't know about you, but in all of the places I know, such a person would barely be able to afford food, let alone shelter, replacement clothing, petrol and insurance for travel (or public transport -- in many places public transport would be four days worth of work for such a person at least).
> So, what alternative explanation other than free markets do you have?
The increase of social welfare safety nets.
> Socialist policy today is often obsessed with the idea of inequality, which is a shame because in many cases financial inequality at least might not be the true underlying problem that needs to be solved.
Of course it isn't, much of it falls down to social class and identity politics -- which is another debate for another day.