A new poverty line shifted the World Bank's poverty data. What changed and why?

Re:A new poverty line shifted the World Bank's poverty data.... by datax2 on Thursday August 14, 2025 @09:26AM (#44900124)

I am not a fan of their initial "Global Income Distribution" curve. if you take the actual data at the bottom of the article and plot it; it does not make anything the resembles a standard distribution as portrayed. It could be an infographic, it could be different axis, who knows, but portraying a standard distribution is wrong if you have an outlying skew in your distribution. Everything under $40 is a standard distribution, but above $40 represents the same volume of people as the average skewing any sort of plotting.

For 2025 only

Global People | Dollars

1,183,873,832 | above $40

389,144,677 | $30-$40

681,087,495 | $20-$30

1,647,364,177 | $10-$20

1,134,291,724 | $7-$10

1,170,170,455 | $5-$7

1,185,828,184 | $3-$5

700,440,541 | $1-$3

107,765,635 | <$1

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Re:A new poverty line shifted the World Bank's poverty data.... by nilstycho on Thursday August 14, 2025 @10:46AM (#44901020)

The x-axis isn't "income", it's "log income".

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Re:A new poverty line shifted the World Bank's poverty data.... by pc86 on Thursday August 14, 2025 @09:43AM (#44900285)

I wish these numbers were percentile relative to the local economy and not in made-up "international dollars."

It means absolutely nothing that 1.1B people live on $3-5/day and a different 1.1B live on $5-7. Can you survive in the local economy on $2/day? Then $4/day is not that bad, and $7/day is doing pretty well.

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Re:A new poverty line shifted the World Bank's poverty data.... by vharuck on Thursday August 14, 2025 @10:43AM (#44900987)

I'm no international poverty economist, but I imagine lower income relative to neighboring countries would still have some effect. For instance, if a poor country suffers a famine in its staple crop, can that government and its citizens afford to import food?

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Re:A new poverty line shifted the World Bank's poverty data.... by vlovich123 on Thursday August 14, 2025 @10:14AM (#44900636)

That’s a fair criticism but given how the economy has globalized, people also exploit that discrepancy by hiring remote workers abroad so it’s not completely irrelevant

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Re:A new poverty line shifted the World Bank's poverty data.... by pessimizer on Thursday August 14, 2025 @12:54PM (#44902765)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity

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Re:A new poverty line shifted the World Bank's poverty data.... by pc86 on Friday August 15, 2025 @08:52AM (#44911761)

Yes I'm familiar with PPP. "International dollars" is something completely different. What is your point?

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Re:A new poverty line shifted the World Bank's poverty data.... by motbus3 on Saturday August 16, 2025 @08:59AM (#44922990)

It would be nice to see above 1000

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