![]() The world is also making progress against poverty relative to higher poverty lines. The $1.90 poverty line is very low and focuses on the very poorest in the world. In 2015 – the last year for which we currently have data – the share of the world population in extreme poverty has fallen below 10%. More and more world regions industrialized and thereby increased productivity which made it possible to lift more people out of poverty: In 1950 two-thirds of the world were living in extreme poverty in 1981 it was still 42%. Since then the share of extremely poor people fell continuously. In 1820 only a tiny elite enjoyed higher standards of living, while the vast majority of people lived in conditions that we would call extreme poverty today. The first chart shows the estimates for the share of the world population living in extreme poverty. As a consequence of these adjustments one international dollar has the same purchasing power as one US-dollar in 2011. The extreme poverty measure is also corrected for different price levels in different countries and it is adjusted for price changes over time (inflation) – poverty is measured in so-called ‘international dollar’. These poverty figures take into account non-monetary forms of income – for poor families today and in the past this is important, particularly because many of them are subsistence farmers who live largely from their own food production. This is an extremely low poverty line that draws attention to the very poorest people in the world. The United Nations measure ‘extreme poverty’ as living on less than 1.90$ per day. To avoid portraying the world in a static way – the North always much richer than the South – we have to start 200 years ago before the time when living conditions really changed dramatically. The countries that are rich today were very poor just a few generations ago. ![]() Take a longer perspective and it becomes very clear that the world is not static at all. When you only consider what the world looked during our life time it is easy to think of the world as static – the richer parts of the world here and the poorer regions there – and to falsely conclude that it always was like that and that it always will be like that. Is it possible to make progress against this problem? To see where we are coming from we must go far back in time. In 1867 the US Government purchased Alaska from the Russians for $7.2 million.Īlmost four hundred and ten years after claiming the continent, Spain lost its last two territories in the new World, in 1898, as Cuba became independent and Puerto Rico became American.Global poverty is one of the very largest problems in the world today. However in 1848, following the US Mexican war, they were forced to give up these to the US Government for $30 million. The defeat of Spain by Napoleon gave the American government an opportunity to conclude the Louisiana Purchase (1803), where nearly one million square miles of the mid-west, that technically belonged to Spain, was sold to the US by France.įollowing the independence of Mexico from Spain (1821) it was the duty of the Mexican government to protect their northern provinces of Texas, New Mexico and California from settlement by Americans. However in the American revolutionary war they lost the Eastern States and then concentrated their efforts in creating Canada. Following the voyages of Cook and Vancouver they were also discovering the Pacific Coast and claimed British Columbia and Oregon. The Spanish still claimed all of South and Central America and North America west of the Mississippi River.īy the mid 18th century the British had removed the French from Montreal and the Dutch from New York. Other owners of American soil were the Russians who claimed Alaska and the Dutch who settled New York and New Jersey. These were outposts for the use of fur traders. The French explored up the Mississippi, founding New Orleans, St Louis and Montreal. New England was settled by Puritan English. Ignoring this the English established colonies in the area now known as Georgia and Virginia, but without wider claims. ![]() The Portuguese, in the same decision, were offered Africa and India. The largest claimants of land in the New World were the Spanish, following a decision of the Pope in the 16th century to allow them all of the Americas.
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