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Suffering the Numbers: Selected Poverty Statistics

• 2.6 billion live on less than $2 a day. More than • Four million children die annually from just three
70 percent live in rural areas and depend on agri- causes: diarrhea, malaria, and pneumonia.
culture.
• 31 percent of African households owned anti-
• Some 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty, defined malaria bed nets in 2008, a 14 percent increase
as $1.25 a day. The number of people in extreme since 2006.
poverty has been falling since 1990. However,
more than sixty million additional people fell into • Fifteen million children have lost one or both
extreme poverty last year because of the global parents to AIDS. Two million children under fif-
recession, the UN reported. teen have HIV.

• The number of hungry people has risen from • In the U.S., the poverty threshold is about $15
842 million in the early 1990s to 1.02 billion last a day per person (based on the 2008 definition
year. of $21,834 for a family of four.) The most recently
reported poverty rate was 13.2 percent, or 39.8
• Women represent two-thirds of the world’s poor, million people, an increase from the year before,
perform two-thirds of the world’s work and pro- according to the U.S. Census. For children under
duce 50 percent of the food (in some regions, 90 eighteen, the poverty rate was 19 percent. For Afri-
percent), while earning 10 percent of the income can Americans, the poverty rate was 25 percent.
and owning 1 percent of the property. Women’s
share of national parliamentary seats increased to • During the last decade, two economic down-
19 percent in 2009, a 6 percent improvement in a turns translated into a significant rise in U.S.
decade, according to the UN. poverty, according to a 2010 Brookings Institu-
tion report. Suburbs saw the greatest growth in
• 2.5 billion people lack basic sanitation services, their poor population and by 2008 had the largest
nearly 40 percent of the world’s population. That share of the nation’s poor. Suburbs in the coun-
number has decreased by 8 percent since 1990. try’s largest metro areas saw their poor popula-
Some 1.2 billion practice open defecation, posing tions grow by 25 percent – almost five times faster
health hazards to entire communities, the UN than primary cities. As a result, by 2008 large
reported. suburbs were home to 1.5 million more poor than
their primary cities and housed almost one-third
• About 900 million have no access to safe of the nation’s poor overall.
drinking water. Unsanitary water causes more
deaths than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculo- • Some 500 million tons of heavy metals and
sis combined. Water-related illness accounts for toxins slip into the global water supply annually,
80 percent of all sickness and disease globally. according to UNESCO estimates. Up to 70 per-
Unsanitary water is blamed for 1.5 million cases cent of industrial waste in developing countries is
of hepatitis A and 133 million cases of intestinal dumped untreated into lakes and rivers. China’s
worms, the UN reported. At some point in their polluted lakes and rivers force 300 million people
lives, 50 percent of all people in the developing to rely on polluted water supplies.
world will be in the hospital because of a water-
related disease. • 20 percent of the wealthiest people (the top
billion) consume 80 percent of the earth’s water,
• About eight million children under five are ex- energy, and minerals each day, according to
pected to die this year, most from preventable www.fairshareinternational.org.
diseases. That vast number is considered an im-
provement; mortality rates are declining because • World agriculture produces 17 percent more
of stepped up immunizations, vitamin A supple- calories per person than it did thirty years ago
ments, and insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent despite a 70-percent increase in the population,
malaria. Some 40 percent of the deaths occur in according to worldhunger.org. This is enough to
just three countries: India, Nigeria, and Demo- provide everyone in the world with 2,720 food
cratic Republic of Congo, UNICEF reported. calories a day. But millions do not have enough
land to grow food or enough income to buy it.

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