Poverty, wealth and inequality

Poverty, wealth and inequality

1. Economic changes According to the Human Development Report of the United Nations Program, inequality in the world has increased markedly in recent years. It is important to review what has happened in recent decades at the level of the world economy. One of the factors that determine the gaps between poor and rich countries is the difficulty of having some nations to pay their external debts because of inflation and unemployment increased. Countries such as the United States and Great Britain raised large increases in interest rates. Therefore, through the increase in interest rates, developed countries transferred the cost of the crisis to the poorest countries. Moreover, liberal measures were a great boost for industrialized countries. The same did not happen with developing countries, which were forced to adopt rigorous economic adjustment programs. Organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank modified their strategy. Its action was no longer oriented to

2. How is poverty measured? The poverty line has been defined in one dollar a day per person. That means that with that value a person has only minimal survival conditions. In poor countries, 1.3 billion people live on less than a dollar a day. The United Nations included data on the population with a life expectancy of less than 40 years: illiterates, people without access to health services and drinking water, malnourished children less than 5 years of age.