Share of population in poverty ($3 a day): source and method

Citation

World Bank Poverty and Inequality Platform (2026) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Share of population in poverty ($3 a day) – World Bank” [dataset]. World Bank Poverty and Inequality Platform, “World Bank Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP) 20260922_2021, 20260922_2017” [original data].

What it measures

Percentage of population living in households with an income or consumption below $3 per day. Unit: %.

How the data were processed

For most countries in the dataset, estimates relate to disposable income or consumption, for all available years. Several countries, however, have a mix of income and consumption data points, with both data types sometimes available for particular years.

In most of our charts, we present the data with some data points dropped to present a single series for each country. This allows us to make readable visualizations that combine multiple countries. In choosing which data points to keep, we strike a balance between maintaining comparability over time and showing as long a time series as possible. As such, the exact approach varies across countries.

Where it was taken from

Our World in Data publishes its data under the Creative Commons BY 4.0 licence; data produced by third parties keep their own licence, given in the full metadata. How this site takes its figures · All share of population in poverty ($3 a day) figures.