Global Inequality

In their report Born Equal, Save the Children demonstrates that while the number of people in extreme poverty has decreased from about 2 billion to less than 1.3 billion since 1990, the income gap between the poorest and richest children has grown 35 percent.  That gap is larger than that between adults.

A child in the richest 10% of households has 35 times the effective available income of a child in the poorest 10% of households.

The distribution of poverty has changed.  In 1990, 93 percent of people in poverty lived in low income countries.  Now 70 percent live in middle income countries.  The effect is that while absolute poverty is declining, many poor people struggle with relative poverty - unable to meet their needs where they live.