The extremely poor have become a minority

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Most people in the world no longer live in extreme poverty!

Today, just 9% of people in the world live in extreme poverty, with less than $2.15 per day. However, most people’s view of extreme poverty is outdated by many, many decades!

About this misconception

The share of people in the world living in extreme poverty has decreased steadily since 1900. In the last 40 years, huge countries like China, India and Nigeria have become middle-income countries. But that change is something that happens over years rather than days or weeks, so it gets little attention from the news media.
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Free slideshow and video

Here you can download the video and slideshow. You can see the data behind this fact here. This teaching material is free to use and modify.  Please mention gapminder.org/3