Poverty Is Widespread In Europe

Zero Hedge: Poverty In Europe 

In 2022, 95.3 million people in the EU (22 percent of the population) were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, i.e. living in households facing at least one of the three risks of poverty and exclusion: income poverty, severe material and social deprivation and/or living in a household with very low work intensity (where adults work at less than 20 percent of their potential over one year). 

As Statista's Anna Fleck reports, according to Eurostat data, this figure has remained relatively stable compared to the previous year (95.4 million in 2021, 22 percent of the population). 

The proportion of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion varies markedly from one EU country to another.  

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WNU Editor: I would not be surprised if poverty in Europe will be greater for 2023.

Gallup: 95% Of The World's Vulnerable Live In Undeveloped Countries

Gallup: Millions Vulnerable in Developing and Developed World

* 710 million out of 750 million highly vulnerable live in developing world
* Poorest in developed countries as highly vulnerable as the richest in developing countries

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Before the COVID-19 pandemic made life harder for almost everyone on the planet, Gallup analysis shows that three-quarters of a billion people worldwide were struggling to meet their basic needs and didn't have any family or friends to help in times of trouble.

While the highly vulnerable on Gallup's new Basic Needs Vulnerability Index exist in every country, most -- about 710 million out of the 750 million -- live in developing economies. The rest -- about 40 million -- live in developed economies.

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Update: Index: 95% of world's 'highly vulnerable' live in undeveloped nations (UPI)

WNU Editor: The above poll was done before the pandemic. Here is an easy point to make. You can now add tens of millions in the developed world to this total.

U.N. Issues Warning That The Covid-19 Caused Economic Downturn Could Kill Hundreds Of Thousands Of Children in 2020

Egyptian clown Ahmed Naser, performs to entertain and help children to put on face masks as a preventive measure amid concerns about the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Darb Al-Ban district at Islamic Cairo, Egypt April 13, 2020. Picture taken April 13, 2020. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany/File Photo

Reuters: U.N. warns economic downturn could kill hundreds of thousands of children in 2020

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of children could die this year due to the global economic downturn sparked by the coronavirus pandemic and tens of millions more could fall into extreme poverty as a result of the crisis, the United Nations warned on Thursday.

The world body also said in a risk report that nearly 369 million children across 143 countries who normally rely on school meals for a reliable source of daily nutrition have now been forced to look elsewhere.

“We must act now on each of these threats to our children,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “Leaders must do everything in their power to cushion the impact of the pandemic. What started as a public health emergency has snowballed into a formidable test for the global promise to leave no one behind.”

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WNU Editor: Economic downturns always bring an increase in the death rate. Doubly so in poor and developing countries. Here is an easy prediction. When this is all over, there will be a debate on whether these lock-down measures caused more harm than good.

Extreme poverty rises again in Latin America

Reuters: Number of Latin Americans in extreme poverty highest since 2008: U.N. agency

(Reuters) - The number of people living in extreme poverty in Latin America increased in 2017 to the highest level in almost a decade despite an improvement in government social spending policies, a United Nations agency said on Tuesday.

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said the proportion of people in extreme poverty, which is characterized by lack of access to basic human necessities like food and shelter, rose to 10.2 percent of the population in 2017, or 62 million people, from 9.9 percent in 2016.

The figure is the highest since 2008 and largely due to an economic deterioration in Brazil, which has only begun to rebound in the last year from its worst recession in decades. Brazil has about 200 million people, making it Latin America’s most populous nation.

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Update #1: Extreme poverty rises again in Latin America (France 24)
Update #2: Extreme Poverty Increases in Latin America, reports ECLAC (Prensa Latina)

WNU Editor: Economic and political turmoil in Brazil for the past few years, coupled with the disaster in Venezuela, is the reason for this increase in extreme poverty.

World Bank: Half The World Lives On Less Than $5.50 A Day

Phys.org: Nearly half the world lives on less than $5.50 a day: World Bank

Despite progress in reducing extreme poverty, nearly half the world's population lives on less than $5.50 a day, with a rising share of the poor in wealthier economies, the World Bank said Wednesday.

In a twice-yearly report, the bank took a broader look at poverty to see where countries were lagging, even though the share of those living in extreme poverty—defined as earning less than $1.90 a day—has continued to come down in recent years.

Under the expanded criteria for poverty, the report found the number of poor worldwide was still "unacceptably high," while the fruits of economic growth were "shared unevenly across regions and countries."

Even though global growth of recent years had been sluggish, the total count of people in poverty declined by more than 68 million people between 2013 and 2015—"a number roughly equivalent to the population of Thailand or the United Kingdom."

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Update #1: Nearly half the planet's population lives on less than $5.50 a day (CBS)
Update #2: Nearly half the world lives on less than $5.50 a day: World Bank (AFP)

WNU Editor: There is progress in reducing extreme poverty, but it is going slowly.

Will China’s Huge Anti-Poverty Drive Make A Difference?

SCMP: Grinding poverty in China – is Xi Jinping’s alleviation campaign making any difference?

Families struggling to keep their heads above water in one mountain village say they’re counting on their children, not the government, to improve their lives.

In an impoverished mountain village in northern China, “Xiao Zhang” – or Little Zhang – is doing her homework.

There is just one stool to sit on and no table at her family’s run-down home, so the 15-year-old perches on a tree stump on the cold concrete floor, using the stool as a desk.

Little Zhang spends her weekends at home with her family, studying and helping her father to look after her mother and 18-year-old brother, both of whom have mental disabilities and cannot take care of themselves.

During the week she attends a boarding school in the township, with the help of a charity, working towards her goal of getting into university and eventually landing a job in a big city like Beijing.

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WNU Editor: On my first trip to China in the mid-1980s the first thing that struck me was the poverty .... and it was everywhere. In the first week one of my interpreters brought me to his university dorm room .... it was a 12x16 room that he shared with 3 other students. His only possessions were underwear, t-shirts, two pairs of pants, some shorts, sandals, a pair of shoes, and a few personal items. This extreme poverty is what drove the student protest movement in the late 1980s that eventually led to the Tiananmen massacre in June of 1989. Fortunately ... the times have changed. Today .... China is a different country. Hundreds of millions have benefitted from the economic boom .... specifically the eastern part of the country. But for the rest .... they are still far behind. If Chinese President Xi succeeds in bringing the rest of the country to some level of a middle class .... he will be revered by the hundreds of millions who still live in poverty. If he does not .... history will not be kind to him.

Shocking Scale Of Homelessness In Downtown Los Angeles Exposed

Daily Mail: Welcome to Skid Row 2017: Shocking scale of homelessness in downtown LA is exposed in footage showing sidewalks lined with dozens of tents in deprived area where 20,000 people live on the streets

* Three-minute LiveLeak clip shows the brutal reality of Christmas Day in the underbelly of Downtown LA
* Shot on 5th Street, 6th Steet and San Pedro in the Skid Row district, it captures life in one of the city's most notorious homeless hotspots
* Rubbish bags litter the streets and tents have been erected to shelter residents - including women and children
* Rising cost of living in California is also forcing middle class residents to live in their cars in affluent areas

Rubbish bags piled up by the pavements and littered across streets.

Tents erected in clusters where people have camped down for the night.

Dozens of directionless residents congregating by the roadside and wandering into the road.

This is what Christmas Day looked like for thousands of homeless people in the dark and dingy underbelly of Downtown Los Angeles this year.

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WNU Editor: This crisis has been years in the making .... very little if any coverage in the news media then. So why all the coverage now?

Is This The Future Of America?

Megan Doudney holds daughter Nedahlia as she panhandles on Market Street. “I’m not harming her in any way.” Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle

Heather Knight, San Francisco Chronicle: Homeless mom panhandles on Market Street with newborn baby

San Franciscans know they’ll see all walks of life along Market Street, but a new fixture on the colorful thoroughfare has shocked even the most hardened city dwellers: a 6-week-old, homeless baby girl.

All day long, Megan Doudney, 34, sits on the sidewalk near the Four Seasons Hotel between Third and Fourth streets with little Nedahlia in her arms and a sign reading, “Anything helps.” The sight is alarming, even in this city where just about anything goes.

Pedestrians walking past do double takes, exclaiming, “Oh my God!” or “She has a baby!” But they’re not on some hidden-camera show. This is very much real life.

Several people have called 911, including when another homeless person’s menacing dog got in the baby’s face. Police have responded numerous times, and child welfare workers from the Human Services Agency have investigated whether the baby should be removed from Doudney. At first blush, it seems obvious that’s the right answer, but so far, the city is throwing up its hands. Apparently, the newborn is healthy and developing well, and isn’t going anywhere.

“I’m not harming her in any way,” Doudney told me as we chatted on the sidewalk the other day.

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WNU editor: I saw images like this one waaaayyyy too many times in Russia in the 1990s. Homeless and desperate girls in their early teens begging for money in front of the doors at the GUM shopping mall beside Red Square is an image that I will never forget.

In regards to San Francisco .... my brother lives in the Bay Area and I go see him once every year or two. San Francisco has definitely declined in the 20 years that I have been going there. The homes may be super expensive .... but the homeless problem is exploding.

World Poverty Index (1820 - 2015)

(Click on Image to Enlarge)

WNU Editor: Mankind has certainly progressed a long way in 200 years .... I can only imagine what the world will look like 200 years from now.

Hat Tip to Rantburg for this link.

US Intelligence: Poverty Will Be Eliminated By 2030

US Intelligence Predicts Poverty Plummet By 2030 -- CBS News

ASPEN, Colo. — Poverty across the planet will be virtually eliminated by 2030, with a rising middle class of some two billion people pushing for more rights and demanding more resources, the chief of the top U.S. intelligence analysis shop said Saturday.

If current trends continue, the 1 billion people who live on less than a dollar a day now will drop to half that number in roughly two decades, Christoper Kojm said.

"We see the rise of the global middle class going from one to two billion," Kojm said, in a preview of the National Intelligence Council's global forecast offered at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado.

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My Comment: I am skeptical .... but it is also true that wealth creation is spreading in many parts of the world. The National Intelligence Council's website is here.

World Food Inflation Pushing Millions More Into Poverty

The new arms race is food and energy, says Superfund Financial, in a report that predicts coffee, sugar and cocoa prices will rise up to tenfold by 2014 because of shortages. Reuters

Soaring Food Costs Pushing Millions Into Poverty -- NPR/AP

Soaring food and energy prices, still-fragile financial systems and continued tensions between the United States and China over trade and currency issues will all be on the agenda at meetings over the next three days of global finance officials.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick said Thursday that food prices are 36 percent higher than they were a year ago and already have pushed 44 million people into poverty. He called on major countries to do more to help poor countries meet the challenge of feeding their populations at a time of surging prices.

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My Comment: With wars and revolutions becoming the norm in regions like Africa and the Middle East .... having the necessary social stability to grow food crops is going to become harder and harder in these regions as this unrest continues. But the biggest impact will probably come from Japan's hungry consumers, who will now favor eating foodstuffs grown from outside of Japan in order to allay their fears of radiation poisoning .... hence driving the demand and price of basic foods.

'More Poor' In India Than Africa

From The BBC:

Eight Indian states account for more poor people than in the 26 poorest African countries combined, a new measure of global poverty has found.

The Indian states, including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, have 421 million "poor" people, the study found.

This is more than the 410 million poor in the poorest African countries, it said.

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My Comment: This is not a war/military/intelligence posting, but this story has been running through my mind since yesterday. It makes me realize two things .... (1) I am incredibly lucky and (2) the world is truly a messed up place for a good chunk of its population.

World Poverty Will Not Be Cut In Half By 2015

Halving World Poverty By 2015 Unlikely: UN -- AFP

ADDIS ABABA — The chances of reducing world poverty by half by 2015 are increasingly less likely owing to inadequate plans by states and the global economic crisis, a UN report released in Ethiopia said.

Halving global poverty by 2015 is one of United Nations' eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aimed at improving livelihoods across the world.

"Even before the onset of the current global financial and economic crisis, the world had not been on track to meet MDG 1 by 2015," said the report referring to the first MDG.

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My Comment: Poverty, lack of freedom in speech, lack of free markets, social/religious/cultural intolerance, government corruption and a lack of accountability .... the list is long on why the goal on cutting poverty has not been reached. But it is still a worthy goal, and we must always strive to do better .... we at least owe that to our children.