For the first time, this year the World Bank expects the number of people living in extreme poverty to fall below 10 percent of the world's population, to 702 million people.
The global poverty line was introduced by the World Bank in 1990, set at $1 a day. In 2008, it was adjusted to $1.25 a day, and after taking into consideration new data on cost of living in different countries, is now $1.90 a day, The Guardian reports. The World Bank projects that in 2015, 9.6 percent of the world's population will live in extreme poverty, down from 12.8 percent, or 902 million people, in 2012. "This is the best story in the world today," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said. "These projections show us that we are the first generation in human history that can end extreme poverty."
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