Is the global rate of extreme poverty expected to double due to the coronavirus pandemic?
The World Bank estimates that events this year, including the coronavirus pandemic, will push between 88 million and 115 million additional people into extreme poverty worldwide.
That would mean that between 9.1% and 9.4% of the world’s population would be living in extreme poverty by the end of 2020. At the beginning of 2019, approximately 600 million people worldwide lived in extreme poverty, constituting less than 8% of the world’s population.
That would also result in the first increase in the rate of global poverty since 1998. The World Bank reports that before the pandemic began, the rate had been expected to drop to 7.9% in 2020, a smaller decrease than in years past due to conflicts and climate change.
Extreme poverty is defined as living on less than $1.90 a day.
