The Pandemic Stalls Growth in the Global Middle Class, Pushes Poverty Up Sharply
The global middle class consisted of 54 million fewer people in 2020 than the number projected prior to the onset of the pandemic.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
The global middle class consisted of 54 million fewer people in 2020 than the number projected prior to the onset of the pandemic.
The course of the pandemic in India and China will have a substantial effect on changes in the distribution of income at the global level.
The American middle class is smaller than middle classes across Western Europe, but its income is higher.
From 1991 to 2010, the middle class expands in France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, but, as in the United States, shrinks in Germany, Italy and Spain
The urgency expressed by Pope Francis on global poverty and inequality is grounded in harsh reality. 4.4 billion people – 71% of the global population of 6.2 billion – lived on $10 or less per day in 2011, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the most recently available data.
China and India both succeeded in slashing poverty from 2001 to 2011. But while that contributed to a rapidly growing middle class in China, it did little to increase the number of Indians who could be considered middle income.
During the first decade of this century, the world experienced a dramatic drop in the number of people living in poverty and a significant rise in the number who could be considered middle income, but the majority of the global population remains low income.
The first decade of this century witnessed an historic reduction in global poverty and a near doubling of the number of people who could be considered middle income. But the emergence of a truly global middle class is still far from fruition.
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