5 charts and maps that show the

world is getting much, much

better.
Heidy Zuñiga Jimenez.
 Extreme poverty has fallen

This is probably the most important chart on this

list. The extraordinary rate of economic growth in
India and China- as well as slower but still
significant growth in other developing countries-
has led to a huge decline in the share of the world
population living on less than $1.25 a day, from
52 percent in 1981 to 43 percent in 1990 to 21
percent in 2010.
 Hunger is falling

This animated map shows the Global Hunger Index- a

measure of undernutrition calculated by the
International Food Policy Research Institute- across
the world form 1990 to 2014. Red and orange
countries have especially high levels of hunger and
undernutrition , while Green ones have lower rates So
it is encouraging to watch the globe gradually get less
red and more Green over the past 24 years.
 Child labor is in the decline

Any arrount of child labor is too much child labor, and

the pace at which it is being reduced is not fast enough
to meet the International Labor Organization’s goal of
eliminating hazardous child work by 2016. But the rate
of decline- one third reduction from 2000 to 2012 – is
montrivial and worth celebrating.
The share of income spent on food has plummeted in the US

One reason the huge amount of economic

progress made globaly in recent decades gets
ignored is that living standards for the median
American have been fairly stagnant. One
exception to that oattern, however, in the fact that
cheaper food has freed up Americans to spend
more on other expenses. “ Between 1960 and
2007, the share of disposable personal income
spent on total food by Americans fell from 17.5 to
9.7 percent, and the share of income spent on
food at home fell from 14.1 to 5.6 percent”, the
USDA notes, and they’ve stayed at that low level
since.
“
Thanks you.