BBC: World poverty 'more widespread'
It has revised its previous estimate and now says that 1.4 billion people live in poverty, based on a new poverty line of $1.25 per day.
This is substantially more than its earlier estimate of 985 million people living in poverty in 2004.
The Bank has also revised upwards the number it said were poor in 1981, from 1.5 billion to 1.9 billion.
The new estimates suggest that poverty is both more persistent, and has fallen less sharply, than previously thought.
However, given the increase in world population, the poverty rate has still fallen from 50% to 25% over the past 25 years. …
Ahem… If you increase the poverty threshold by 25%, you will clearly have more people classified as poor. It may be a perfectly legitimate move. But the headline is "World Poverty Threshold Revised Upward" not "World Poverty 'More Widespread.'" There has been no change in anyone's status, just in our evaluation of it.
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