800 Million People in Extreme Poverty... Expanding Jobs Key to Tackling Poverty

World Bank's "2026 Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report"
Extreme poverty rate has remained at around 10% since 2019

The World Bank has found that expanding employment and increasing labor income are key to tackling poverty, as around 810 million people worldwide live in extreme poverty and the extreme poverty rate has remained stagnant for several years.

The National Assembly Library said on November 9 that it had published No. 2026-41 of its “Reports of the Week,” featuring five reports from think tanks in major countries, including the World Bank Group’s (WBG) “2026 Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report.”

According to the World Bank report, an estimated 811 million people worldwide will live on less than $3 a day this year. The extreme poverty rate has remained at around 10% since 2019. Some 3.7 billion people also live on less than $8.30 a day.

The regional concentration of extreme poverty is also expected to intensify. More than half of the people living in extreme poverty are currently concentrated in nine countries and territories. By 2030, an estimated 87% of them will live in sub-Saharan Africa and in countries and territories affected by fragility and conflict.

The report identified low employment rates and labor productivity among people in poverty as major causes. An analysis of more than 130 countries and territories found that the employment rate among people in poverty was about 6 percentage points lower than among those not in poverty, and that they worked fewer hours. The report also found that their household income per person was low because of the burden of supporting dependents.

Simulations showed that raising the employment rate among people in poor households to 75% would reduce the extreme poverty rate by about 20%. Raising the education levels of workers in poverty to those of workers not in poverty would reduce the rate by about 45%.

The World Bank stressed that tackling poverty requires lowering barriers to employment for women, improving productivity in agriculture and small businesses, and expanding access to high-quality, high-paying jobs.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.