//Extreme poverty is getting worse across the globe for the first time in decades

Extreme poverty is getting worse across the globe for the first time in decades

People gather outside a restaurant offering free, socially distanced meals on September 19, 2020, in Ahmedabad, India. | Sam Panthaky/AFP via Getty Images

Covid-19 is projected to leave millions more people trying to live on less than $1.90/day.

For decades, one of the most important indicators of global well-being has kept moving in the right direction: Extreme poverty has been falling.

Although experts can and do debate the details, hundreds of millions of families moved from subsisting on less than $1.90/day (the World Bank’s standard for “extreme poverty”) to living on a little more. To be sure, it’s still not enough, but it has meant less hunger, less premature death, and more opportunity. Despite wars, famines, and natural disasters, extreme poverty has fallen for the last 50 years.

In just one year, Covid-19 has changed that picture profoundly.

The World Bank predicts the number