Atkinson Commission News Today

Informed policy decision-making requires a grasp of how the hard-up are faring on multiple counts. Economists need reliable measures of multidimensional poverty for global comparisons.

As a result of the adoption of the 2017 PPPs, the global poverty lines have been revised: The international poverty line, used to define extreme global poverty, is now revised to US$2.15 from US$1.90. Poverty lines for other sets of countries have also been revised upwards.

The poverty lines traditionally used by the World Bank are absolute poverty lines. An example of this is the international poverty line of $1.90 (2011 PPPs), soon to be updated to $2.15 with the 2017 PPPs.

The World Bank will start using new poverty lines in fall 2022. The decision follows the release in 2020 of new purchasing power parities (PPPs) by the International Comparison Program (ICP).