Poverty can be found citywide, statewide, nationally and globally. Poverty can develop in the smallest or most unexpected locations — familiar places, not simply distant third world countries separated from the cozy upper-middle-class Western lifestyle. This is a global issue that must be dealt with by the international community. Some efforts are being made to that effect, but not enough. Here are 20 poverty facts:

Top 20 Global Poverty Facts

1. Nearly 22,000 children die each day due to living in poverty.
2. There are 2.2 billion children in the world, and 1 billion of them live in poverty.
3. A third of all poor in developing countries are children aged zero to 12.
4. Global poverty has decreased by half over the last decade; however, 71 percent of the population still live in low-income or poor ($10 a day) conditions.
5. The average income of extreme poverty in the developing world rose from 74 cents to 87 cents per day from 1981 to 2010.
6. A quarter of humanity, 1.6 billion people, lives without electricity.
7. Nearly 2.8 billion people rely on wood chips, crop waste or animal dung for cooking and heating their homes.
8. In 2011, about 800 children under the age of five died every hour.
9. Those children could have survived via simple affordable intervention, such as clean drinking water or vaccinations.
10. According to an Oxfam report, if the world’s 100 richest people pooled their collective earnings in 2012, they could have ended extreme world poverty four times over.
11. Eight in 10 Americans were completely unaware that global poverty was decreasing in recent decades. More than two-thirds of the American population thought global poverty had been rising in recent decades.
12. One frappuccino at Starbucks costs more than the median income for people in the developing world ($3 a day).
13. For every $25 spent on repaying debt only $1 goes to aiding a developing country.
14. Approximately 790 million people in developing countries, two-thirds of whom live in Asia and the Pacific, suffer from chronic undernourishment.
15. Five countries house three-fifths of the world’s extreme poor: Bangladesh, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India and Nigeria.
16. About 30 percent of the world’s extremely poor live in India.
17. The 12 percent of the world that uses 85 percent of Earth’s water do not live in a developing country.
18. Some 54 percent of Americans are considered to be living below the poverty line.
19. The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), released in 2014, has been praised for being the “most accurate reflection of the world’s poor” by including quality of life indicators.
20. By maintaining the current rate of progress, poverty should reach its target eradication around 2025-2030.

Even though the efforts and statistics appear bleak, progress is making headway. These 20 poverty facts demonstrate a push in the right direction that the world’s poor need.

– Karyn Adams

Photo: Flickr