Publications

On a global scale, the vast majority of Americans are either upper-middle income or high income. And many Americans who are classified as “poor” by the U.S. government would be middle income globally.

In more than four decades, only seven countries have imposed the kind of limits on people's access to their bank accounts that Greeks have been under since June 28.

During the first decade of this century, the world experienced a dramatic drop in the number of people living in poverty and a significant rise in the number who could be considered middle income, but the majority of the global population remains low income.

The first decade of this century witnessed an historic reduction in global poverty and a near doubling of the number of people who could be considered middle income. But the emergence of a truly global middle class is still far from fruition.

World map indicating the share of a country's population that falls into each of the following income levels: poor, lower income, middle income, upper-middle income, and high income (data is from 2011). There is also a table that lets you select a country and see its income-level distribution and percentage point change from 2001 to 2011.

As Russia plays host this week to a critical summit of leaders of the emerging market nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS), Russian President Vladimir Putin is especially keen on bolstering ties with the leading economic power of the group – China.

Most Greeks polled in 2014 didn’t express particularly warm views of the EU. And public sentiment showed that many in other European nations harbor negative stereotypes of Greeks.