Income & Wages

The urgency expressed by Pope Francis on global poverty and inequality is grounded in harsh reality. 4.4 billion people – 71% of the global population of 6.2 billion – lived on $10 or less per day in 2011, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the most recently available data.

Just what is "economic inequality"? Depends on whom you ask.

The South continues to be home to many of America’s poor, though to a lesser degree than a half-century ago. In 1960, half (49%) of impoverished Americans lived in the South. By 2010, that share had dropped to 41%.

Proposed new overtime rules would make nearly 5 million white-collar workers eligible for time-and-a-half – mostly retail and food service managers, office administrators, low-level financial workers and other modestly paid managers and office professionals.

What exactly does it mean to live on $2 per day? And how does that compare with the notion of poverty in richer countries?

As a whole, Latin America enjoyed solid economic growth in the first decade of this century, with a fall in poverty, a decrease in income inequality and a rise of its middle class.

China and India both succeeded in slashing poverty from 2001 to 2011. But while that contributed to a rapidly growing middle class in China, it did little to increase the number of Indians who could be considered middle income.

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.

Income segregation has increased over the past 30 years in 27 of the 30 largest U.S. metro areas. There were clear divisions between low-income and middle- and upper-income areas, as well as along racial lines.