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🌍 The World Cut Extreme Poverty in Half

Since 1990, the share of people living in extreme poverty has fallen dramatically.

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📰 The Good News

Extreme Poverty Has Been Cut by More Than Half

In 1990, close to 2 in 5 people on Earth lived in extreme poverty. Since then, faster growth across the developing world, wider access to healthcare and education, and sustained global investment have driven that share down to a fraction of what it was — even after setbacks like the pandemic slowed progress.

🌍 The share of the world's population living in extreme poverty has fallen by more than half since 1990, even accounting for recent setbacks.

It's one of the biggest, least-celebrated success stories of the last three decades — gradual enough that it rarely makes headlines, even as it's reshaped hundreds of millions of lives.

👉 Worth Remembering

It's easy to assume global poverty only ever gets worse. The actual 30-year trend line says otherwise — real progress that just isn't dramatic enough to trend.

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