The impact of COVID-19 on global extreme poverty
“How has COVID-19 affected extreme income poverty across the world? We may never know the full answer. Poverty data is typically drawn from household surveys, and for obvious reasons it is nigh impossible to conduct proper surveys under current conditions in many countries. But we do know that the strongest driver of poverty is economic growth and for this indicator, the International Monetary Fund has just produced new estimates for 2020 and beyond from which inferences can be made as to the impact on poverty. Interested readers can access poverty estimates for every country in the world on the World Poverty Clock, a tool with which I am associated.”