For the first time, less than 10 percent of the world is living in extreme poverty, World Bank says

The World Bank provided some relief from bad news this week with some fresh, positive data: For the first time ever, it estimates that the number of people around the world living in extreme poverty will fall below 10 percent.

Using an updated international poverty line of USD $1.90 a day, the Bank estimated that global poverty has fallen from 12.8 percent of the world's population in 2012 to 9.6 percent of the global population in 2015. The new figures raise hopes that extreme poverty could be eliminated in the near future, the bank said.

“This is the best story in the world today — these projections show us that we are the first generation in human history that can end extreme poverty,’’ Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, said in a statement.

The new figures are certainly remarkable when you consider that just 25 years ago more than a third of the world was living in extreme poverty, according to the Bank's figures. Despite the rising population all around the world, there are less than half the number of people living in extreme poverty in 2015 than there were in 1990.

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