At a time when the gap between rich and poor is widening day by day, the section of the population that can be defined as very poor, on the edge of survival itself, has reached the record figure of 692 million individuals in 2024.
The figure, which comes from the World Bank and which can reasonably be assumed to have been rounded due to a difficult-to-identify underground economy, speaks of 8.5% of the world's population living on less than $2.15. per day.
They don't even do well An additional 3.5 billion people: almost half of the world's population, 43.6% to be exact, lives below the threshold in this case of $6.85 per daya figure – defined as poverty – almost unchanged compared to the 1990s following the increase in population.
In short, the reduction of global poverty, it is emphasized, is at a standstill. the 2020-2030 period risks being a lost decade.
Poverty, Caritas canteen (Pixabay)
“Over the past five years, progress in the fight against poverty has slowed to a halt, raising fears that the 2020-2030 period will be a lost decade,” says the international institution created with the aim of fight against poverty and organize aid. and financing of states in difficulty.
Even though the share of those earning less than $6.85 per day has fallen from 70% in the 1990s to 43.6% today, the actual number of poor people has changed little due to population growth.
“Although the rate of extreme poverty fell from 38% in 1990 to 8.5% in 2024″, the decline has recently slowed due to slowing economic growth, but also the pandemic, high levels of inflation and intensification of conflicts”, indicates the World Bank.
By the end of the decade, 7.3% of the population is expected to live in extreme poverty, more than double the World Bank's target.
Poverty (GettyImages)
And food poverty is increasing again in Italy too: in 2023, 4.9 million Italians – 8.4% of the population over 16 years old – will not be able to afford a full meal every two days. An increase of one percentage point in the rates of material and social deprivation, equivalent to 500 thousand people for each index, compared to 2022 and a reversal of the trend after years of decline.
