Charts of the Week: Global and U.S. poverty trends

This week, highlights from research on U.S. and global poverty trends and data.

India is moving down in global poverty

Today’s discussion of global impoverishment and poverty reduction generally centers on the African continent. Homi Kharas, Kristofer Hamel, and Martin Hofer call attention to the general trend of India, a country with a large impoverished population but that is moving down in global poverty rankings, below other countries based on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s annual Goalkeeper’s report.

Poverty is decreasing across Africa

Today, one in three Africans lives below the global poverty line. However, according to Kristofer Hamel, Baldwin Tong, and Martin Hofer, there is a larger trend showing that poverty is decreasing across the African continent. If these trends continue, by 2030, Africa will reduce the number of the extremely poor by 45 million people, a step toward the goal of eradicating extreme poverty on the continent.

poor people in the United States are increasingly living in suburbs

While poverty is often associated with rural or urban environments in the United States, Elizabeth Kneebone found that, increasingly, American poor people are now migrating into the suburbs surrounding large metro areas—16 million people in 2015.

Julia O’Hanlon contributed to this post.