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17% of the global population could be considered middle income in 2020. Most people were either low income (51%) or poor (10%).
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
17% of the global population could be considered middle income in 2020. Most people were either low income (51%) or poor (10%).
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.
The fortunes of the middle classes across Western Europe are moving in different directions. Some nations are experiencing both growing incomes and expanding middle classes, while other nations are witness to stagnant or declining incomes and shrinking middle classes, a new Pew Research Center analysis of 11 Western European countries has found. But in a few other countries studied, the middle-class shares are decreasing even as incomes overall are rising.
As part of a new study, Pew Research Center designed income calculators to help you determine where you fit on the income ladder in Western Europe.
Most of the biggest inflation-adjusted wage gains have occurred in metro areas that have directly benefited from the boom in U.S. oil and gas production
in terms of income status, the past four decades have been very good to people working in financial and natural-resources industries or as executives and managers, but not so good for sales workers or people in blue-collar manufacturing jobs.
As a whole, Latin America enjoyed solid economic growth in the first decade of this century, with a fall in poverty, a decrease in income inequality and a rise of its middle class.
On a global scale, the vast majority of Americans are either upper-middle income or high income. And many Americans who are classified as “poor” by the U.S. government would be middle income globally.
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.
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