Two measures of poverty across 158 countries, each showing the most recent available observation.
Source: World Bank Poverty and Inequality Platform, via Our World in Data. Each country shows its most recent available observation, with the year given on hover. Poverty data comes from household surveys conducted irregularly, so reference years differ between countries and direct comparison carries that caveat. The international line is set at $3 a day in 2021 purchasing power parity.
The international line is currently set at $3 a day in 2021 purchasing power parity, revised upward from $2.15 as price data was updated. It is designed for cross-country comparison and is the basis for SDG target 1.1. Because it is calibrated to the national poverty lines of the world’s poorest countries, it is a threshold for absolute deprivation rather than a measure of poverty as most societies understand it.
National poverty lines are each country’s own definition, set by its statistical office against local costs and social expectations. They are what domestic policy actually responds to, and they are not comparable between countries.
The gap between the two, where both exist, is often the most informative number on this page. India records 5.3% at the international line and 21.9% at its own. Neither figure is wrong; they measure different things, and a policy conversation using one when it means the other will go badly.
Reference years differ between countries. Poverty data comes from household surveys conducted irregularly — some countries every year, others once a decade. The hover panel shows the year for each figure. A map comparing a 2024 observation against a 2011 one is doing something less straightforward than it appears.
The international line makes high-income countries look empty. At $3 a day, almost all of Europe and North America sits near zero. That is a property of the threshold, not evidence that poverty is absent. Relative poverty measures, which are what those countries actually use, tell a different story entirely.
Grey means no survey, not no poverty. Several countries with likely high rates have no recent data, often for reasons — conflict, state capacity — that correlate with poverty itself.
Absent from this map: inequality. Two countries with identical poverty headcounts can have very different distributions above the line. The Gini coefficient measures that, and is a separate dataset.
Poverty is SDG 1, and it sits underneath most of the other Goals. A household below the line does not choose between clean cooking fuel and dirty; it does not choose at all.
My work touching on poverty, development and their environmental dimensions:
Data from the World Bank Poverty and Inequality Platform, via Our World in Data.