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TLDR; When the numbers don't fit the narrative, you need to pick out different numbers. "Here are a few points to keep in mind. Using the $1.90 line shows tha

TLDR; When the numbers don't fit the narrative, you need to pick out different numbers. "Here are a few points to keep in mind. Using the $1.90 line shows that only 700 million people live in poverty." It shows that "only" 700 million people live in extreme poverty as defined by the World Bank. "If $1.90 is inadequate to achieve basic nutrition and sustain normal human activity, then it’s too low – period." Yeah, no shit. Extreme Poverty is extremely bad. "Remember: $1.90 is the equivalent of what that amount of money could buy in the US in 2011." Yes, it's bad. Really really bad. Let's drive that point home some more. "If we use $7.40 per day, we see a decline in the proportion of people living in poverty, but it’s not nearly as dramatic as your rosy narrative would have it. In 1981 a staggering 71% lived in poverty. Today it hovers at 58% (for 2013, the most recent data). Suddenly your grand story of progress seems tepid, mediocre, and – in a world that’s as fabulously rich as ours – completely obscene." No it doesn't! The fact that the number of people that used to live in extreme poverty has gone down means that these people don't live in extreme poverty anymore. That's actually much more significant than the number of generally poor people that are now slightly less poor.

andrepd 8y ago
Wait a minute, how does that go one way but not the other? Why is using $7.4 "doctoring the data" to fit your narrative but $1.9 not? The author uses arguments such as >The USDA states that about $6.7/day is necessary for achieving basic nutrition. Peter Edwards argues that people need about $7.40 if they are to achieve normal human life expectancy. The New Economics Foundation concludes that around $8 is necessary to reduce infant mortality by a meaningful margin. to support his view that 1.9$ is a ridiculous measure promoted only to make the graphs look good and the narrative of "neoliberal progress" work. While on the other hand, the ~7$ figure, which he argues based on those references is the bare minimum, makes it all look rather drab (71%->58% in 40 years...)
- zeroname 8y ago
  I didn't say anyone is doctoring data. The data may well be true, but it may not fit your narrative. If your narrative is "people are getting poorer" you need to set the bar high, if your narrative is "people are getting richer", you need to set the bar low. In that sense it goes both ways. However, the difference between outright starving to death, being extremely poor and simply "being poor" is staggering. You wouldn't argue that a million people saved from starvation looks "rather drab when considering that the average poor person still can't afford to drive a car". You may say "1.90$ is ridiculous", but hundreds of millions of people actually do have to live on that. It's not like it's a fantasy number that nobody actually lives off.
  - ar0 8y ago
    To be fair, Hickel is discussing the different poverty lines because he is refuting an explicit argument from Pinker in his letter: > "2. The level at which one sets an arbitrary cutoff like “the poverty line” is irrelevant — the entire distribution has shifted, so the trend is the same wherever you set it." Hickel argues (using data) that this statement is at least not qualitatively true, as the trend is quite different if you set the poverty line at higher level.
    - zeroname 8y ago
      Even the data that Hickel picked (excluding China) shows is that the trend is down. I'm not sure Pinker is right in that the it's true for every single social stratum everywhere across the world, I would think that certain middle-class earners are poorer today in relative terms. However, for anyone considered poor by any reasonable standard, my guess is that the global trend is down, otherwise Hickel could've come up with that data. So in that sense the cutoff is irrelevant. Note that Pinker in his letter talks exclusively about extreme poverty. In a free market, of course it's easier to lift people out of extreme poverty than ordinary poverty, so it should come as no surprise that the trend is even steeper there.
      - dahart 8y ago
        > Even the data that Hickel picked (excluding China) shows is that the trend is down. In the infographic Gates tweeted, it claims to show a 75% reduction in global poverty between 1980 and today. In Hickels chart, it goes up 5% from 1980-2000 and down maybe 7% from 2000 to today. You’re claiming they both show a downward trend today so therefore they’re basically the same? That’s not just misleading, but also misses Hickels point. What I got out of his main point isn’t whether the trend is up or down so much as that poverty is not a solved problem. Gates’ infographic makes it look like a solved problem, like we don’t have to do anything because it’s going away on it’s own.
        zeroname 8y ago
        This is Bill Gates' infographic: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DxSZ58_XQAAoxM8.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DxSZ58_XQAAoxM8.jpg:large It does show a 75% in extreme poverty. That happens to be a straight down trend. Nobody even disputes this. It also shows a number of other things, such that "democracy" is actually stagnating. Bill Gates' actual remark on it is that people underestimate how much things have improved over the last two hundred years. Hickel picks that one graph and turns it into the "Bill Gates says poverty is decreasing, he couldn't be more wrong" headline: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/29/bill-gates-davos-global-poverty-infographic-neoliberal https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/29/bill-g... That's dishonest. First of all, extreme poverty is decreasing. That's the actual claim and it is true. Secondly, poverty even by Hickel's standards is also decreasing. It may not have been decreasing consistently over every single past decade, but indeed is decreasing today and for the past decade. Hickel then goes on to say that "the number of people living in poverty" has increased. Indeed it has, as has the number of people living. The actual percentage of people living in poverty has gone down. So what exactly is the problem with what Bill Gates actually said? He never claimed that poverty is solved, nor did he endorse "neoliberalism" as the solution.

andrepd 8y ago

Wait a minute, how does that go one way but not the other? Why is using $7.4 "doctoring the data" to fit your narrative but $1.9 not? The author uses arguments such as >The USDA states that about $6.7/day is necessary for achieving basic nutrition. Peter Edwards argues that people need about $7.40 if they are to achieve normal human life expectancy. The New Economics Foundation concludes that around $8 is necessary to reduce infant mortality by a meaningful margin. to support his view that 1.9$ is a ridiculous measure promoted only to make the graphs look good and the narrative of "neoliberal progress" work. While on the other hand, the ~7$ figure, which he argues based on those references is the bare minimum, makes it all look rather drab (71%->58% in 40 years...)

zeroname 8y ago
I didn't say anyone is doctoring data. The data may well be true, but it may not fit your narrative. If your narrative is "people are getting poorer" you need to set the bar high, if your narrative is "people are getting richer", you need to set the bar low. In that sense it goes both ways. However, the difference between outright starving to death, being extremely poor and simply "being poor" is staggering. You wouldn't argue that a million people saved from starvation looks "rather drab when considering that the average poor person still can't afford to drive a car". You may say "1.90$ is ridiculous", but hundreds of millions of people actually do have to live on that. It's not like it's a fantasy number that nobody actually lives off.
- ar0 8y ago
  To be fair, Hickel is discussing the different poverty lines because he is refuting an explicit argument from Pinker in his letter: > "2. The level at which one sets an arbitrary cutoff like “the poverty line” is irrelevant — the entire distribution has shifted, so the trend is the same wherever you set it." Hickel argues (using data) that this statement is at least not qualitatively true, as the trend is quite different if you set the poverty line at higher level.
  - zeroname 8y ago
    Even the data that Hickel picked (excluding China) shows is that the trend is down. I'm not sure Pinker is right in that the it's true for every single social stratum everywhere across the world, I would think that certain middle-class earners are poorer today in relative terms. However, for anyone considered poor by any reasonable standard, my guess is that the global trend is down, otherwise Hickel could've come up with that data. So in that sense the cutoff is irrelevant. Note that Pinker in his letter talks exclusively about extreme poverty. In a free market, of course it's easier to lift people out of extreme poverty than ordinary poverty, so it should come as no surprise that the trend is even steeper there.
    - dahart 8y ago
      > Even the data that Hickel picked (excluding China) shows is that the trend is down. In the infographic Gates tweeted, it claims to show a 75% reduction in global poverty between 1980 and today. In Hickels chart, it goes up 5% from 1980-2000 and down maybe 7% from 2000 to today. You’re claiming they both show a downward trend today so therefore they’re basically the same? That’s not just misleading, but also misses Hickels point. What I got out of his main point isn’t whether the trend is up or down so much as that poverty is not a solved problem. Gates’ infographic makes it look like a solved problem, like we don’t have to do anything because it’s going away on it’s own.
      - zeroname 8y ago
        This is Bill Gates' infographic: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DxSZ58_XQAAoxM8.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DxSZ58_XQAAoxM8.jpg:large It does show a 75% in extreme poverty. That happens to be a straight down trend. Nobody even disputes this. It also shows a number of other things, such that "democracy" is actually stagnating. Bill Gates' actual remark on it is that people underestimate how much things have improved over the last two hundred years. Hickel picks that one graph and turns it into the "Bill Gates says poverty is decreasing, he couldn't be more wrong" headline: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/29/bill-gates-davos-global-poverty-infographic-neoliberal https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/29/bill-g... That's dishonest. First of all, extreme poverty is decreasing. That's the actual claim and it is true. Secondly, poverty even by Hickel's standards is also decreasing. It may not have been decreasing consistently over every single past decade, but indeed is decreasing today and for the past decade. Hickel then goes on to say that "the number of people living in poverty" has increased. Indeed it has, as has the number of people living. The actual percentage of people living in poverty has gone down. So what exactly is the problem with what Bill Gates actually said? He never claimed that poverty is solved, nor did he endorse "neoliberalism" as the solution.