Extreme Poverty Has Dropped in Half Since 1990

Since 1990, the percentage of the world’s population living in extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $1.25 per day, has dropped from 36% in 1990 to 18% in 2010. This achieved the United Nations millennium development goal of halving extreme poverty 5 years before its target date of 2015; the reduction has been drastic enough that despite rapid growth in the global population, the number of people living in extreme poverty has declined in absolute terms as well.