Huge progress has been made in improving the quality of life for billions of people over the past two centuries, but it does not follow that “extreme poverty is being eradicated.” Many world leaders, economists, and pundits have enthusiastically promoted a self-congratulatory message, proclaiming progress against poverty to be “one of the greatest human achievements of our time,” [...]
Almost all of these celebratory accounts rely one way or another on the World Bank’s international poverty line (IPL), under which the number in extreme poverty fell from 1.895 billion in 1990 to 736 million in 2015, and thus from about 36 to 10 percent of the world’s population. [...]
What exactly is the IPL? The current line is derived from an average of national poverty lines adopted by some of the world’s poorest countries, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Unlike many national lines, it is not based on any direct assessment of the cost of essential needs. It is an absolute line, constant in value, calculated and expressed using purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars, which are designed to adjust for the costs of goods in different countries in a way that market exchange rates do not [...] The current line of US$1.90 2011 PPP per day represents what that amount could buy in the United States in 2011. Expressed in local currencies for the most recent years available, the line translates to living on 7.49 yuan per day in China, 1.41 euros in Portugal [...]
The IPL is of course well below the national poverty lines of most countries, and accordingly generates dramatically lower numbers in poverty. For example, using the most recent comparisons available, Thailand has a poverty rate of 0.0 percent under the IPL but 9.9 percent under the national line, the United States, 1.2 percent versus 12.7 percent, South Africa, 18.9 percent versus 55 percent, and Mexico, 1.7 percent versus 41.9 percent [...]
The IPL is explicitly designed to reflect a staggeringly low standard of living, well below any reasonable conception of a life with dignity. Under the measure, one can ‘escape’ from poverty without an income anywhere near that required to achieve an adequate standard of living, including access to healthcare and education [...]
Much of the progress reflected under the Bank’s line is due not to any global trend but to exceptional developments in China [...] Without China, the global headcount under a $2.50 line barely changed between 1990 and 2010. [...]
EDIT: Link to the original document at https://poverty.ac.uk/editorial/un-expert-condemns-failure-tackle-extreme-poverty
there doesn't seem to be anything here