Rich get richer, poor get poorer?
The Rich Get Rich and Poor Get Poorer. Or Do They? New York Times on the facts behind the economic inequality in the world today.
In 1970, global income distribution peaked at about $1,000 in today's dollars, a common measure of poverty ($2 a day in 1985 dollars). In 1998, by contrast, the largest number of people earned about $8,000 — a standard of living equivalent to Portugal's.
"That's what I call a new world middle class," says Professor Sala-i-Martin. It is mostly made up of the top 40 percent of Chinese and Indians, and the effect of their economic rise is big.
[But] Fully 95 percent of the world's "one-dollar poor" live in Africa, and in many countries they make up the vast majority of the population. That poverty, not the rising wealth of Asian countries, is the global economy's real problem.