2026-08-26 · people
Still living under $2.15 a day
The global poverty line moved — the human count did not disappear.
About 12% of the world's 8.2 billion people still live in extreme poverty — hundreds of millions living on less each day than a healthy diet costs. The World Bank's line moved in 2025, from $2.15 to $3 a day, adding 125 million people to the count. The measure changed; the hardship did not. Most affected live in Sub-Saharan Africa, where population growth is outpacing economic gains.
1 cell = 8.2 million people (0.1% of world population) · 1,000 cells
Context
In June 2025, the World Bank raised its International Poverty Line from $2.15 to $3 a day, a threshold meant to reflect the typical poverty lines of the world's poorest countries. The revision added 125 million people to the global estimate — a change in how poverty is measured, not a sudden wave of new deprivation.
The long-run trend is still downward: more than 1.5 billion fewer people live below the line than in 1990, an average of about 118,000 people per day over 35 years. But COVID-19 pushed roughly 50 million more people into extreme poverty in 2020, the first substantial rise in a generation, and progress since has been slower. On current trends, World Bank projections show hundreds of millions still in extreme poverty in 2030.
The geography of poverty has shifted: most people in extreme poverty now live in Sub-Saharan Africa, where weak economic growth and rapid population growth have pushed numbers up. And the $3 line is only the floor — about 24% of the world lives on less than $5 a day, and 52% on less than $10.
World Bank PIP ~12% in extreme poverty, rounded.
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