World Bank & Poverty Line

Published on 25 Oct 2025

• The World Bank has revised the International Poverty Line (IPL), a global benchmark used to define and track extreme poverty, from $2.15/day (2017 PPP) to $3.00/day (2021 PPP).

• This was part of reflecting updated Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) prices between nations.

• The update has led to an increase of 125 million more people globally being classified as extremely poor.

• Despite the change, India has seen a sharp decline in extreme poverty—from 27.1% in 2011-12 to 5.3% in 2022-23. 

• The number of Indians living on less than $3/day in 2024 stood at 54.7 million, and 171 million people were lifted out of extreme poverty over the past decade.

• Rural poverty fell from 18.4% to 2.8% and urban poverty from 10.7% to 1.1%.

• The rural-urban gap narrowed from 7.7 to 1.7 percentage points.

• Five most populous states account for 54% of India’s extremely poor.

• Schemes like free food transfers played a key role in poverty reduction.

• The International Comparison Program (ICP) is a global initiative led by the World Bank under the UN Statistical Commission. It collects price data from over 180 countries to calculate Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs), which adjust currencies for price differences and allow comparison of poverty, GDP, and living standards. Since 2017, it is held every 3 years and is one of the world’s largest statistical efforts.

https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/june-2025-global-poverty-update-from-the-world-bank--2021-ppps-a

Keywords:

World Bank & Poverty Line World Bank International Poverty Line IPL Poverty Purchasing Power Parity PPP International Comparison Program ICP UN Statistical Commission GDP Living standards Hunger Economy