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Poverty Rate by Country 2024

Snapshot

  • Poverty can be cyclical, with lack of access to education, healthcare, and job opportunities perpetuating the inability to improve financial situations.

  • South Sudan has the highest poverty rate at 82.3%, indicating severe economic challenges and a need for significant humanitarian and developmental aid.

  • The United States, with a significant wealth inequality gap, has varying poverty rates, up to 17.8%, pointing to challenges even in the world's largest economy.

Poverty is a state of being in which a person lacks the income (or other means of support) to reliably meet their basic personal needs, such as food, shelter, and clothing. Poverty exists in every country in the world, though it is a more pressing issue in some countries than in others. The poverty rate is the number of people (usually expressed as a percentage) in a given demographic group whose income falls below the poverty line.

Poverty has a wide range of possible causes, from the amount of fresh water and arable land in a region to government policies or ongoing armed conflict. Additionally, natural disasters such as the COVID pandemic or the 2020 earthquakes in Puerto Rico can further strain an impoverished area's already scarce resources.

Poverty can be a cyclical trap. For people to rise above poverty, they need education, proper health care and sanitation, access to clean water, and job opportunities that can help them improve their financial situation. Unfortunately, people in poverty often live in areas low on these resources. Therefore, the people become trapped in a vicious cycle in which they can't get better jobs until they improve their situation (education is particularly helpful), but they can't afford to improve their situation until they get better jobs.

To help break the cycle of poverty, organizations including the United Nations, World Vision, and Global Citizen have worked alongside various governments to improve impoverished people's access to clean water, adequate food, affordable education and health care, and other needs.

Country-wide poverty is typically measured in one of two ways. The first is to determine the percentage of people whose daily income falls below specific baseline amounts, such as $10 per day. These baselines remain the same for every country, enabling a slightly different perspective on country-to-country comparisons.

The most widely used baseline amount is $1.90 per day, measured in 2011 PPP international dollars (INT), a theoretical unit of currency used to make country-to-country comparisons easier. People who make less than this amount are considered to be in "extreme poverty", which is to say they are the poorest of the poor. Additional baselines such as $3.30/hr and $5.90/hr are often employed to help count people whose poverty is slightly less extreme.

The second way to measure a country's poverty level is to determine the percentage of people or families who earn less than the "national poverty line", or poverty threshold—meaning, the annual income below which a person or family is considered impoverished. The national poverty line is calculated independently for each country because each country's economy is different. For example, a person earning $25,000 a year in the United States would have different opportunities than a person who earned $25,000 a year in Somalia.

10 Countries With the Highest Poverty Rate

The majority of countries in the world, as well as organizations such as World Bank, the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), and the European Union, set the national poverty line at 50% of a given year's median income. For instance, the median income in the United States was $67,521 in 2020 so the national poverty line according to the United Nations would be $33,761.

However, some countries use different calculations. The U.S. itself, for example, employs a formula first devised in the 1960s, which calculated the estimated cost of adequate food for a year and multiplies by three to account for additional costs (housing, utilities, medical expenses, etc). For 2020, this formula set the poverty threshold at $26,246 for a family of four—significantly lower than the more widely used World Bank method.

This discrepancy—coupled with the fact that those above the poverty threshold are often ineligible for aid programs—is the main reason that many anti-poverty advocates and policy experts including the Washington Post argue that the U.S. formula is badly outdated and has failed to keep up with the rising cost of housing and other expenses.

Globally speaking, the number of people living in extreme poverty has been on the decline for several decades, from 1.94 billion in 1982 to 696 million in 2017. This decrease is particularly encouraging because the Earth's population rose considerably during this same time period, from roughly 4.5 billion people in 1981 to more than 7.8 billion in 2021.

While overall poverty rates have improved considerably in recent decades, several individual countries have experienced a rise in poverty. As previously mentioned, 696 million people still live in extreme poverty, surviving on less than $1.90 (INT) per day. More than 430 million of these people live in Sub-Saharan Africa, the poorest region in the world, where more than 40% of people lived in extreme poverty as of 2018. Many countries in which poverty is rising have been plagued by political instability or conflict. Others are hampered by frequent natural disasters or ongoing environmental stresses (increased drought in particular) caused by climate change. Several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa face both of these concerns.

The poverty rate in the United States varies depending upon the method of measurement. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the official 2017 poverty rate in the U.S. was 12.3%. However, other sources placed it as high as 17.8%. Despite being the largest economy in the world, the U.S. also has a significant wealth inequality gap. The 2021 poverty threshold in the United States is $26,246 for a family of four. This means that households with two adults, two children, and a pre-tax income of less than $26,246 are considered to be living in poverty. Some states are more impoverished than others, and their poverty is exacerbated by high unemployment rates and a lack of high-paying jobs.

Note:
- Poverty Rate is measured as the percentage of the population living below the national poverty line(s). National estimates are based on population-weighted subgroup estimates from household surveys.
- The World Bank updated the global poverty lines in September 2022. The decision, announced in May, followed the release in 2020 of new purchasing power parities (PPPs)—the main data used to convert different currencies into a common, comparable unit and account for price differences across countries. The new extreme poverty line became $2.15 per person per day, replacing the previous value of $1.90, which was based on 2017 PPPs.
- Poverty rates for Australia, Canada, Israel, and the United States were computed from OECD data for 2022 or the latest available year. All other countries' rates courtesy of World Bank.

Download Table Data

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Country
% Less than $10/day
% Less than $3.65/day
Poverty Rate
Data Year
Somalia99.5%90.2%54.4%2022
Malawi99.1%89.1%50.7%2019
South Sudan98.8%86.5%82.3%2016
Niger97.6%81.1%40.8%2018
Nigeria96.9%63.5%40.1%2018
Rwanda96.8%78%38.2%2016
Tanzania96.6%74.3%26.4%2018
Uganda96.4%71.9%20.3%2019
Liberia96.3%60.6%50.9%2016
Guinea96.2%46.6%43.7%2018
Sierra Leone96%64.3%56.8%2018
Chad95.5%64.6%42.3%2018
Guinea Bissau95.4%56.8%47.7%2018
Bangladesh95.2%51.6%18.7%2022
Pakistan94.5%39.8%21.9%2018
Benin93.3%53.2%38.5%2018
India92.1%44.8%21.9%2011
Togo92.1%56.8%45.5%2018
Mali91.6%47.5%44.6%2021
Zimbabwe91.4%64.5%38.3%2019
Vanuatu91.4%35%15.9%2019
Lesotho91.2%54.7%49.7%2017
Ghana90%48.9%23.4%2016
Sao Tome and Principe90%44.8%55.5%2018
Djibouti89.7%43.8%21.1%2017
Kiribati89.5%19.4%21.9%2019
Angola88.7%52.9%32.3%2018
Burkina Faso88.5%59.8%0%
Ivory Coast88.4%39.6%39.5%2018
Kyrgyzstan88.2%18.7%33.3%2021
Senegal88%37.4%46.7%2011
Myanmar87.2%19.6%24.8%2017
Laos85.8%32.5%18.3%2018
Eswatini85.6%58%58.9%2016
Armenia82.8%6.9%26.5%2021
Philippines82.3%27%18.1%2021
Georgia81.1%21.4%15.6%2022
Indonesia79.7%22.4%9.5%2022
Fiji77.2%12.4%24.1%2019
Sri Lanka75%13.8%14.3%2019
Honduras65%26.4%48%2019
Mongolia64.2%6.9%27.8%2020
Peru61.9%17.4%27.5%2022
Colombia60.7%21.1%39.3%2021
Bhutan60.3%9.4%12.4%2022
Marshall Islands57%6.1%7.2%2019
Ecuador54.5%14.4%25.2%2022
Mexico52.5%9.9%36.3%2022
Gabon52.1%8.1%33.4%2017
Iran48.2%6.2%0%
Kazakhstan46.4%0.5%5.2%2022
Dominican Republic46.3%5.3%23.9%2021
China45.8%3%0%2020
Moldova45%0.4%31.1%2022
Vietnam43.8%5.3%4.8%2020
Palestine41.5%3.1%0%
Saint Lucia39.7%11.7%25%2016
Paraguay39.5%5.2%24.7%2022
North Macedonia37.9%7.1%21.8%2019
Costa Rica34.9%6%25.5%2022
Brazil34.4%5.3%0%
Thailand33.8%0.7%6.3%2021
Mauritius32.8%1.8%10.3%2017
Bolivia31.9%6.2%36.4%2021
Albania30.7%0.8%22%2020
Montenegro30.5%6.3%21.2%2020
Serbia27.5%1.2%21.2%2020
Ukraine27.2%0.2%1.6%2020
Turkey25%2.2%14.4%2020
Chile20.5%1.7%10.8%2020
Panama20%3.7%21.5%2019
Romania19.9%4.7%21.2%2021
Uruguay17.2%0.9%9.9%2022
Maldives17.1%0%5.4%2019
Russia15.2%0.3%12.1%2020
Seychelles15.2%1.2%25.3%2018
Bulgaria13.7%2.8%22.9%2021
Poland13.2%0.1%11.8%2022
Greece8.7%1.3%18.8%2021
Israel8%1%16.9%
Latvia6.3%0.8%22.5%2021
Croatia6.1%0.6%18%2018
Slovakia5%0.5%13.7%2021
Italy4.7%2.1%20.1%2021
Spain4.7%1.1%20.4%2021
Portugal4.3%0.2%16.4%2021
Lithuania3.9%0.7%20.9%2021
South Korea2.7%0.5%0%
Estonia2.5%0.9%22.8%2021
United States2.2%1.2%18%
United Kingdom1.8%0.5%18.6%2017
Australia1.5%0.7%12.6%
Sweden1.4%0.4%16%2021
Canada1.2%0.5%10.5%
Austria1.2%0.7%14.8%2021
Malta1.2%0.4%16.7%2021
Czech Republic1.1%0%10.2%2021
Netherlands0.8%0.1%14.5%2021
Germany0.7%0.2%14.7%2021
Taiwan0.7%0.2%0%
Norway0.7%0.3%12.7%2019
Cyprus0.7%0.2%13.9%2021
Denmark0.5%0.3%12.4%2021
Switzerland0.4%0%14.7%2020
Slovenia0.4%0%12.1%2021
Luxembourg0.4%0.1%17.4%2021
France0.3%0.1%15.6%2021
Finland0.3%0.1%12.7%2021
Iceland0.2%0%8.8%2017
Ireland0.1%0.1%14%2021
Ethiopia0%0%23.5%2015
Egypt0%0%29.7%2019
DR Congo0%0%63.9%2012
South Africa0%0%55.5%2014
Kenya0%0%36.1%2015
Sudan0%0%46.5%2009
Iraq0%0%18.9%2012
Algeria0%0%5.5%2011
Argentina0%0%39.2%2022
Afghanistan0%0%54.5%2016
Morocco0%0%4.8%2013
Uzbekistan0%0%14.1%2013
Yemen0%0%48.6%2014
Mozambique0%0%46.1%2014
Malaysia0%0%6.2%2021
Nepal0%0%25.2%2010
Madagascar0%0%70.7%2012
Venezuela0%0%33.1%2015
Cameroon0%0%37.5%2014
Syria0%0%35.2%2007
Zambia0%0%54.4%2015
Guatemala0%0%59.3%2014
Cambodia0%0%17.7%2012
Burundi0%0%64.9%2013
Tunisia0%0%16.6%2021
Haiti0%0%58.5%2012
Belgium0%0%13.2%2021
Jordan0%0%15.7%2018
Papua New Guinea0%0%39.9%2009
Azerbaijan0%0%6%2012
Tajikistan0%0%22.5%2022
Hungary0%0%12.1%2021
Belarus0%0%4.8%2020
Nicaragua0%0%24.9%2016
El Salvador0%0%26.6%2022
Republic of the Congo0%0%40.9%2011
Central African Republic0%0%68.8%2021
Lebanon0%0%27.4%2011
Mauritania0%0%31.8%2019
Bosnia and Herzegovina0%0%16.9%2015
Gambia0%0%53.4%2020
Jamaica0%0%19.9%2012
Botswana0%0%16.1%2015
Namibia0%0%17.4%2015
Equatorial Guinea0%0%76.8%2006
Timor Leste0%0%41.8%2014
Comoros0%0%42.4%2013
Solomon Islands0%0%12.7%2020
Cape Verde0%0%35.2%2015
Samoa0%0%21.9%2018
Micronesia0%0%41.2%2013
Tonga0%0%22.5%2009
Palau0%0%24.9%2006
Tuvalu0%0%26.3%2010
showing: 164 rows

What country is #1 in poverty?

South Sudan has the highest poverty rate in the world.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources