KEY INFORMATION ON INEQUALITY AND POVERTY
This report provides new evidence on social mobility in the context of increased inequalities of income and opportunities in OECD and selected emerging economies. It covers the aspects of both, social mobility between parents and children and of personal income mobility over the life course, and their drivers. The report shows that there is space for policies to make societies more mobile and protect households from adverse income shocks. It discusses the options and measures that policy-makers can consider how to improve social mobility across and within generations.
The long-run increase in income inequality not only raises social and political concerns, but also economic ones. It tends to drag down GDP growth, due to the rising distance of the lower 40% from the rest of society. Lower income people have been prevented from realising their human capital potential, which is bad for the economy as a whole.This book highlights the key areas where inequalities are created and where new policies are required, including persisting gender gaps; the challenge of high wealth concentration, and the role for redistribution policies, among others. Data on income inequality and poverty
"Compare Your Income'' web tool What's your perception of income inequality? The OECD Compare your income tool allows you to see whether your perception is in line with reality. In only a few clicks, you can see where you fit in your country's income distribution. In June 2020, an updated edition was released to explore how people’s perceptions of inequality impact their willingness to support redistribution and to see what areas users would prioritise for public spending. RELATED DOCUMENTS
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The World Bank Group’s goals are to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity. This mission underpins our analytical, operational, and convening work in more than 145 client countries. For almost 25 years, extreme poverty — the first of the world’s Sustainable Development Goals — was steadily declining. Now, for the first time in a generation, the quest to end poverty has suffered a setback. Global extreme poverty rose in 2020 for the first time in over 20 years as the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic compounded the forces of conflict and climate change, which were already slowing poverty reduction progress. About 100 million additional people are living in poverty as a result of the pandemic. In 2018, four out of five people below the international poverty line lived in rural areas. Many people who had barely escaped extreme poverty could be forced back into it by the convergence of COVID-19, conflict, and climate change. The "new poor" probably will: Middle-income countries such as India and Nigeria will be significantly affected; middle-income countries may be home to about 80 percent of the new poor. New research estimates that climate change will drive 68 million to 132 million into poverty by 2030. Climate change is a particularly acute threat for countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia — the regions where most of the global poor are concentrated. In a number of countries, a large share of the poor live in areas that are both affected by conflict and facing high exposure to floods — for example, Nepal, Cameroon, Liberia, and the Central African Republic. The newest and most immediate threat to poverty reduction, COVID-19, has unleashed a worldwide economic disaster whose shock waves continue to spread. Without an adequate global response, the cumulative effects of the pandemic and its economic fallout, armed conflict, and climate change will exact high human and economic costs well into the future. The latest research suggests that the effects of the current crisis will almost certainly be felt in most countries through 2030. Under these conditions, the goal of bringing the global absolute poverty rate to less than 3 percent by 2030, which was already at risk before the crisis, is now beyond reach without swift, significant, and substantial policy action. History shows that urgent and collective action can help us tackle this crisis. Last Updated: Oct 14, 2021
The current moment of crisis is extraordinary. No prior disease has become a global threat so quickly as COVID-19. Never have the world’s poorest people resided so disproportionately in conflict-affected territories and countries. Changes in global weather patterns induced by human activity are unprecedented. There is no silver bullet to ending poverty, and strategies to reach the least well-off must be tailored to each country’s context, taking into account the latest data and analysis and the needs of the people. How the world responds to these major challenges today will have a direct bearing on whether the current reversals in global poverty reduction can be turned around. The immediate highest priorities everywhere must be saving lives and restoring livelihoods. Some of the policies needed to achieve this are already in place, such as social protection systems. While addressing COVID-19 is crucial, countries should continue to enact solutions to the ongoing obstacles to poverty reduction. The World Bank provides recommendations for a complementary two-track approach: responding effectively to the urgent crisis in the short run while continuing to focus on foundational development problems, including conflict and climate change. Overall, with more than 60 percent of the world’s extreme poor living in middle-income countries, we cannot focus solely on low-income countries if we want to end extreme poverty. We need to focus on the poorest people, regardless of where they live, and work with countries at all income levels to invest in their well-being and their future. This goal to end poverty works hand in hand with the World Bank Group’s goal to promote shared prosperity, focused on increasing income growth among the bottom 40 percent in every country. Boosting shared prosperity broadly translates into improving the welfare of the least well-off in each country and includes a strong emphasis on tackling persistent inequalities that keep people in poverty from generation to generation. Our work at the World Bank Group is based on strong country-led programs to improve living conditions – to drive growth, raise median incomes, create jobs, fully incorporate women and young people into economies, address environmental and climate challenges, and support a stronger, more stable economy for everyone. This is no easy task, and the road ahead will not be simple or straightforward, but this is at the core of what we do every day at the World Bank Group, and we will continue to work closely with countries to help them find the best ways to improve the lives of their least advantaged citizens. Last Updated: Oct 14, 2021
The World Bank Group works to end poverty in several ways: Some examples: Grow Invest Insure Last Updated: Oct 14, 2021 |