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"More and more analysts, though, are pointing out that this claim is little more than an accounting trick: UN officials have massaged the numbers to make it see

"More and more analysts, though, are pointing out that this claim is little more than an accounting trick: UN officials have massaged the numbers to make it seem as though poverty has been reduced, when in fact it has increased." http://ssir.org/articles/entry/using_design_thinking_to_eradicate_poverty_creation http://ssir.org/articles/entry/using_design_thinking_to_erad...

vidarh 11y ago
This one (linked from yours) is even more directly addressing the trickery involved: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/08/exposing-great-poverty-reductio-201481211590729809.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/08/exposing-gr...
- Isamu 11y ago
  > the Bank shifted the IPL from the original $1.02 (at 1985 PPP) to $1.08 (at 1993 PPP), which, given inflation, was lower in real terms. I don't understand this, and they don't explain. What is PPP, if not "real terms"? Plus I hate it when somebody makes a claim like this without actually showing the numbers, or creating a graph - it makes the claim less plausible than what they are complaining about. Otherwise the article has valid points, mostly about watering down goals, and the lack of real progress in poverty reduction. Note also that the OP is about the poverty rate, not about poverty being in decline, which is in fact increasing all too quickly.
  - vidarh 11y ago
    I believe what he's saying is that 1.02 1985-dollars (PPP adjusted) is greater than 1.08 1993-dollars (PPP adjusted). Clicking the first two inflation calculators I found on Google and assuming their numbers are right (they both gave the same result), it does seem that if they had inflation adjusted the number using US rates, the original USD 1.02 should have been USD 1.37 by 1993. EDIT: It's of course important to keep in mind that inflation rates are different across the world, and presumably the world bank at least will insist that they accounted for real term price changes for the relevant goods, so I still don't know how relevant this point in the article actually is.
- yk 11y ago
  Unfortunately I fail to replicate the assertions of the article, using the World Bank's povcal tool. [0] ( Linked in the article.) As far as my clicking around goes, it seems that a strong reduction in poverty is independent of the precise poverty line used. In particular, if I use a poverty line of $2.5/day (2005 PPP), the data shows a reduction from 75% of global population to 46%, contrary to the claim of the article. So just a bit playing with the data seems to imply that the claim of a strong reduction in global extreme poverty seems to be warranted. (This is certainly not a sciency study...) [0] http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/index.htm?1# http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/index.htm?1#
  - DannoHung 11y ago
    Doesn't this basically just show that there has been inflation? Why not use some stuff like infant mortality or literacy or deaths from starvation or deaths from communicable disease? You know, stuff that actually indicates whether someone is impoverished or not.
    - cperciva 11y ago
      Doesn't this basically just show that there has been inflation? No, because the poverty lines are all expressed in inflation-adjusted dollars. Why not use some stuff like infant mortality or literacy or deaths from starvation or deaths from communicable disease? You know, stuff that actually indicates whether someone is impoverished or not. Those measures are all improving dramatically too.
  - vidarh 11y ago
    You need to switch to 2005 PPP [1] in order to replicate the number from the article. The numbers then does show increasing absolute numbers of poor until 1999, and then a decline getting to slightly below 1981 levels in 2011. As percentage of the worlds population it looks a bit better. [1] This version uses 205 PPP: http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNetPPP2005/index.htm?0 http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNetPPP2005/index.htm?0
    - 11y ago
crazydoggers 11y ago
Hmm... seems like if you move a large number of people out of "extreme poverty" which was originally defined by the UN, and set at $1.90 a day by the World Bank, they're still going to end up under the "poverty line" of $5.00 a day as defined by your article. So I'm not sure how this constitutes a "trick". You'd have to move those people directly out of extreme poverty over the $5.00 a day in your article in order to drop the number of people in poverty. It's still frankly an improvement to move such a large number of people up the poverty scale. I'm sure i'd rather be living on $4 a day rather than $2.
mbostleman 11y ago
When it comes to policy that drives the funding of social programs and wealth redistribution, everything is an accounting trick. One example is that the US Census Bureau's reporting of poverty statistics based on income has changed to NOT include the income of many benefits including food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit. If you include these benefits prior to counting the poor, the poverty rate falls to nearly zero. This is why the director of the Census Bureau's report now answers to the White House instead of the Director of Commerce. Bending the numbers is essential to maintaining and expanding institutions. The switch was made when Obama nominated Rebuplican senator Judd Gregg as Commerce Secretary. Given that Gregg had previously voted to abolish the Commerce department, it is likely that his influence would have brought the numbers in line with the facts. But, had Gregg accepted the nomination, it would have opened up a senate seat that would have been filled by the Democratric governor of his state. So to have his cake and eat it too, Obama took control of the number reporting. Gregg did not accept the nomination. Talk about accounting tricks. Another example is the disparity between counting income vs. consumption. Again in the US, when the money spent by poorer classes that are studied is counted it is far greater than what is calculated as their income (which is what policy is based on) This indicates that in-kind gifts and other non-reported income is substantial, but not counted.
- vidarh 11y ago
  Source? Because the Census Bureau also releases the Supplemental Poverty Measure [1], which amongst other breakdowns includes numbers that adjusts for taxes (if you're going to count for tax credits, you also need to account for taxes paid if the numbers are to make sense), housing benefits, and various in-kind benefits. It also includes various other costs. Table 4a on page 9 gives a breakdown on how different aspects of the Supplemental Poverty Measure affects the total number. The lowest version you can get from that table is 11.8% - if you remove medical out of pocket expenses from the income subtractions before calculating the rate (in other words: if you assume people are perfectly healthy, directly contradicted by evidence, you get a more favourable number of how many people can afford to put food on the table). I'm curious what elements you'd add/remove to the SPM to get to "nearly zero". [1] http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p60-254.pdf http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publication...
tn13 11y ago
Does not make sense. As someone who grew up in poverty in India which is also home to 17% of world population the poverty has reduced substantially over last 20 years post economic reforms. There is no possible way I could think of how poverty could have increased. If we just look at China an India which is home to 33% of world population extreme poverty is down by 50% in whatever way you measure it.
ef4 11y ago
That article is highlighting deeply misleading facts. For example: "between 1990 and 2010 there was an increase of 371 million people living on less than $5 a day". But during the same time period, the world added 1.6 billion people, and even using your source's own data, that implies that the fraction of people living on less than $5 a day dropped from 75% to 60%. In short, the claim that poverty is getting worse is utter bullshit. It requires either climate-change-denialist levels of willful ignorance, or a xenophobic definition of "poverty" that only counts people living in your own much-richer-than-global-average country.
- mbostleman 11y ago
  "...or a xenophobic definition of "poverty" that only counts people living in your own much-richer-than-global-average country." In which case you are no longer measuring poverty. You are measuring inequality.
  - collyw 11y ago
    Agan it probably depends how you define poverty. If you live somewhere where the land provides enough food for your needs every day, you probably don't need $2 per day. If you define poverty as never knowing if you will have enough for the next meal then the $2 cutoff is again probably fairly irrelevant.
- webXL 11y ago
  Good catch, but what does climate-change denial have to do with this? No, really, your "science is settled" attitude detracts from your case.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  You are looking at it in relative terms (total_in_poverty / total). However, according to your own analysis of the poster's source, the absolute number of people in poverty has increased a lot. >In short, the claim that poverty is getting worse is utter bullshit. 371 million more people in poverty is not "getting worse"?

vidarh 11y ago

This one (linked from yours) is even more directly addressing the trickery involved: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/08/exposing-great-poverty-reductio-201481211590729809.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/08/exposing-gr...

Isamu 11y ago
> the Bank shifted the IPL from the original $1.02 (at 1985 PPP) to $1.08 (at 1993 PPP), which, given inflation, was lower in real terms. I don't understand this, and they don't explain. What is PPP, if not "real terms"? Plus I hate it when somebody makes a claim like this without actually showing the numbers, or creating a graph - it makes the claim less plausible than what they are complaining about. Otherwise the article has valid points, mostly about watering down goals, and the lack of real progress in poverty reduction. Note also that the OP is about the poverty rate, not about poverty being in decline, which is in fact increasing all too quickly.
- vidarh 11y ago
  I believe what he's saying is that 1.02 1985-dollars (PPP adjusted) is greater than 1.08 1993-dollars (PPP adjusted). Clicking the first two inflation calculators I found on Google and assuming their numbers are right (they both gave the same result), it does seem that if they had inflation adjusted the number using US rates, the original USD 1.02 should have been USD 1.37 by 1993. EDIT: It's of course important to keep in mind that inflation rates are different across the world, and presumably the world bank at least will insist that they accounted for real term price changes for the relevant goods, so I still don't know how relevant this point in the article actually is.
yk 11y ago
Unfortunately I fail to replicate the assertions of the article, using the World Bank's povcal tool. [0] ( Linked in the article.) As far as my clicking around goes, it seems that a strong reduction in poverty is independent of the precise poverty line used. In particular, if I use a poverty line of $2.5/day (2005 PPP), the data shows a reduction from 75% of global population to 46%, contrary to the claim of the article. So just a bit playing with the data seems to imply that the claim of a strong reduction in global extreme poverty seems to be warranted. (This is certainly not a sciency study...) [0] http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/index.htm?1# http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/index.htm?1#
- DannoHung 11y ago
  Doesn't this basically just show that there has been inflation? Why not use some stuff like infant mortality or literacy or deaths from starvation or deaths from communicable disease? You know, stuff that actually indicates whether someone is impoverished or not.
  - cperciva 11y ago
    Doesn't this basically just show that there has been inflation? No, because the poverty lines are all expressed in inflation-adjusted dollars. Why not use some stuff like infant mortality or literacy or deaths from starvation or deaths from communicable disease? You know, stuff that actually indicates whether someone is impoverished or not. Those measures are all improving dramatically too.
- vidarh 11y ago
  You need to switch to 2005 PPP [1] in order to replicate the number from the article. The numbers then does show increasing absolute numbers of poor until 1999, and then a decline getting to slightly below 1981 levels in 2011. As percentage of the worlds population it looks a bit better. [1] This version uses 205 PPP: http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNetPPP2005/index.htm?0 http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNetPPP2005/index.htm?0
  - 11y ago

crazydoggers 11y ago

Hmm... seems like if you move a large number of people out of "extreme poverty" which was originally defined by the UN, and set at $1.90 a day by the World Bank, they're still going to end up under the "poverty line" of $5.00 a day as defined by your article. So I'm not sure how this constitutes a "trick". You'd have to move those people directly out of extreme poverty over the $5.00 a day in your article in order to drop the number of people in poverty. It's still frankly an improvement to move such a large number of people up the poverty scale. I'm sure i'd rather be living on $4 a day rather than $2.

mbostleman 11y ago

When it comes to policy that drives the funding of social programs and wealth redistribution, everything is an accounting trick. One example is that the US Census Bureau's reporting of poverty statistics based on income has changed to NOT include the income of many benefits including food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit. If you include these benefits prior to counting the poor, the poverty rate falls to nearly zero. This is why the director of the Census Bureau's report now answers to the White House instead of the Director of Commerce. Bending the numbers is essential to maintaining and expanding institutions. The switch was made when Obama nominated Rebuplican senator Judd Gregg as Commerce Secretary. Given that Gregg had previously voted to abolish the Commerce department, it is likely that his influence would have brought the numbers in line with the facts. But, had Gregg accepted the nomination, it would have opened up a senate seat that would have been filled by the Democratric governor of his state. So to have his cake and eat it too, Obama took control of the number reporting. Gregg did not accept the nomination. Talk about accounting tricks. Another example is the disparity between counting income vs. consumption. Again in the US, when the money spent by poorer classes that are studied is counted it is far greater than what is calculated as their income (which is what policy is based on) This indicates that in-kind gifts and other non-reported income is substantial, but not counted.

vidarh 11y ago
Source? Because the Census Bureau also releases the Supplemental Poverty Measure [1], which amongst other breakdowns includes numbers that adjusts for taxes (if you're going to count for tax credits, you also need to account for taxes paid if the numbers are to make sense), housing benefits, and various in-kind benefits. It also includes various other costs. Table 4a on page 9 gives a breakdown on how different aspects of the Supplemental Poverty Measure affects the total number. The lowest version you can get from that table is 11.8% - if you remove medical out of pocket expenses from the income subtractions before calculating the rate (in other words: if you assume people are perfectly healthy, directly contradicted by evidence, you get a more favourable number of how many people can afford to put food on the table). I'm curious what elements you'd add/remove to the SPM to get to "nearly zero". [1] http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p60-254.pdf http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publication...

tn13 11y ago

Does not make sense. As someone who grew up in poverty in India which is also home to 17% of world population the poverty has reduced substantially over last 20 years post economic reforms. There is no possible way I could think of how poverty could have increased. If we just look at China an India which is home to 33% of world population extreme poverty is down by 50% in whatever way you measure it.

ef4 11y ago

That article is highlighting deeply misleading facts. For example: "between 1990 and 2010 there was an increase of 371 million people living on less than $5 a day". But during the same time period, the world added 1.6 billion people, and even using your source's own data, that implies that the fraction of people living on less than $5 a day dropped from 75% to 60%. In short, the claim that poverty is getting worse is utter bullshit. It requires either climate-change-denialist levels of willful ignorance, or a xenophobic definition of "poverty" that only counts people living in your own much-richer-than-global-average country.

mbostleman 11y ago
"...or a xenophobic definition of "poverty" that only counts people living in your own much-richer-than-global-average country." In which case you are no longer measuring poverty. You are measuring inequality.
- collyw 11y ago
  Agan it probably depends how you define poverty. If you live somewhere where the land provides enough food for your needs every day, you probably don't need $2 per day. If you define poverty as never knowing if you will have enough for the next meal then the $2 cutoff is again probably fairly irrelevant.
webXL 11y ago
Good catch, but what does climate-change denial have to do with this? No, really, your "science is settled" attitude detracts from your case.
jsprogrammer 11y ago
You are looking at it in relative terms (total_in_poverty / total). However, according to your own analysis of the poster's source, the absolute number of people in poverty has increased a lot. >In short, the claim that poverty is getting worse is utter bullshit. 371 million more people in poverty is not "getting worse"?