Poverty headcount ratio at societal poverty line (% of population) by country

What this measures

The poverty headcount ratio at societal poverty line is the percentage of a population living in poverty according to the World Bank's Societal Poverty Line. The Societal Poverty Line is expressed in purchasing power adjusted 2021 U.S. dollars and defined as max($3.00, $1.30 + 0.5*Median). This means that when the national median is sufficiently low, the Societal Poverty line is equivalent to the extreme poverty line, $3.00. For countries with a sufficiently high national median, the Societal Poverty Line grows as countries’ median income grows.

Limitations: Despite progress in the last decade, the challenges of measuring poverty remain. The timeliness, frequency, quality, and comparability of household surveys need to increase substantially, particularly in the poorest countries. The availability and quality of poverty monitoring data remains low in small states, countries with fragile situations, and low-income countries and even some middle-income countries. The low frequency and lack of comparability of the data available in some countries create uncertainty over the magnitude of poverty reduction. Besides the frequency and timeliness of survey data, other data quality issues arise in measuring household living standards.

Each country's latest available year is shown; countries report on different schedules, so compare years before comparing values.

Ranking

Regions and income groups

More poverty indicators

• Income share held by second 20%
• Income share held by third 20%
• Income share held by fourth 20%
• Income share held by highest 20%
• Income share held by highest 10%
• Proportion of people living below 50 percent of median income (%)
• Income share held by lowest 10%
• Income share held by lowest 20%
• Poverty headcount ratio at $3.00 a day (2021 PPP) (% of population)
• Poverty gap at $3.00 a day (2021 PPP) (%)
• Gini index
• Poverty headcount ratio at $4.20 a day (2021 PPP) (% of population)

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Source

World Bank, World Development Indicators, SI.POV.SOPO, CC BY 4.0. Original source: World Bank, Poverty and Inequality Platform. Data are based on primary household survey data obtained from government statistical agencies and World Bank country departments. Data for high-income economies are mostly from the Luxembourg Income Study database. View on data.worldbank.org; the full definition is in the World Bank's metadata glossary.