by Prabhat Patnaik
International Development Economics Associate | July 19, 2020
There is much self-congratulatory back-slapping among governments, the World Bank officials and many economists about the “decline in poverty” that is supposed to have occurred between 1990 and the onset of the recent pandemic. This decline is claimed on the basis of an International Poverty Line (IPL) of $ 1.90 a day (at 2011 Purchasing Power Parity) worked out by the Bank, which basically defines poverty across the world as lack of access over one day to the bundle of goods that $1.90 would have bought in the U.S. in 2011.
How ridiculously low this figure is can be gauged from two facts. In 2011 in the U.S. $1.90 would have just sufficed to buy a cup of coffee and nothing more. In India the equivalent of $1.90 in 2011, while Rs. 95 at the nominal exchange rate, would have been only Rs.29 at the PPP exchange rate, which would have barely purchased two bottles of drinking water.Read More »