Poverty Statistics: Is There Really No Corruption?

It says it all.......


The world hunger problem: Facts, figures and statistics
from http://library.thinkquest.org/C002291/high/present/stats.htm

• In the Asian, African and Latin American countries, well over 500 million people are living in what the World Bank has called "absolute poverty"
  
• Every year 15 million children die of hunger
  
• For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years
  [*]Throughout the 1990's more than 100 million children will die from illness and starvation. Those 100 million deaths could be prevented for the price of ten Stealth bombers, or what the world spends on its military in two days!
  
• The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world is well-fed, one-third is under-fed one-third is starving- Since you've entered this site at least 200 people have died of starvation. Over 4 million will die this year.
  
• One in twelve people worldwide is malnourished, including 160 million children under the age of 5. United Nations Food and Agriculture
  
• The Indian subcontinent has nearly half the world's hungry people. Africa and the rest of Asia together have approximately 40%, and the remaining hungry people are found in Latin America and other parts of the world. Hunger in Global Economy
  
• Nearly one in four people, 1.3 billion - a majority of humanity - live on less than $1 per day, while the world's 358 billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45 percent of the world's people. UNICEF
  
• 3 billion people in the world today struggle to survive on US$2/day.
  
• In 1994 the Urban Institute in Washington DC estimated that one out of 6 elderly people in the U.S. has an inadequate diet.
  
• In the U.S. hunger and race are related. In 1991 46% of African-American children were chronically hungry, and 40% of Latino children were chronically hungry compared to 16% of white children.
  
• The infant mortality rate is closely linked to inadequate nutrition among pregnant women. The U.S. ranks 23rd among industrial nations in infant mortality. African-American infants die at nearly twice the rate of white infants.
  
• One out of every eight children under the age of twelve in the U.S. goes to bed hungry every night.
  
• Half of all children under five years of age in South Asia and one third of those in sub-Saharan Africa are malnourished.
  
• In 1997 alone, the lives of at least 300,000 young children were saved by vitamin A supplementation programmes in developing countries.
  
• Malnutrition is implicated in more than half of all child deaths worldwide - a proportion unmatched by any infectious disease since the Black Death
  
• About 183 million children weigh less than they should for their age
  
• To satisfy the world's sanitation and food requirements would cost only US$13 billion- what the people of the United States and the European Union spend on perfume each year.
  
• The assets of the world's three richest men are more than the combined GNP of all the least developed countries on the planet.
  
• Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger
  
• It is estimated that some 800 million people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition, about 100 times as many as those who actually die from it each year.

Statistics on Poverty and Inequality
By Jeff Gates
May 1999
From http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/inequal/gates99.htm

• The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) reported in 1998 that the world's 225 richest people now have a combined wealth of $1 trillion. That's equal to the combined annual income of the world's 2.5 billion poorests people.
  
• The wealth of the three most well-to-do individuals now exceeds the combined GDP of the 48 least developed countries.
  
• While global GNP grew 40 percent between 1970 and 1985 (suggesting widening prosperity), the number of poor grew by 17 percent.
  
• Although 200 million people saw their incomes fall between 1965 and 1980, more than 1 billion people experienced a drop from 1980 to 1993.
  
• In sub-Saharan Africa, twenty nations remain below their per capita incomes of two decades ago while among Latin American and Caribbean countries, eighteen are below their per capita incomes of ten years ago.
  
• UNDP reported in 1996 that 100 countries were worse off than 15 years ago.
  
• Three decades ago, the people in well-to-do countries were 30 times better off than those in countries where the poorest 20 percent of the world's people live. By 1998, this gap had widened to 82 times (up from 61 times since 1996).
  
• In 1998, that 20 percent of the world's people living in the highest-income countries accounted for 86 percent of total private consumption expenditures while the poorest 20 percent accounted for only 1.3 percent. That's down from 2.3 percent three decades ago.
  
• At present, 3 billion people live on less than $2 per day while 1.3 billion get by on less than $1 per day. Seventy percent of those living on less than $1 per day are women. With global population expanding 80 million per year, World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn cautions that, unless we address "the challenge of inclusion," 30 years hence we will have 5 billion people living on less than $2 per day.
  
• Two billion people worldwide now suffer from anemia, including 55 million in industrial countries. Given current trends in population growth and prosperity-hoarding, three decades from now we could have a world in which 3.7 billion people are anemic.
  
• These related phenomena led UN development experts to observe that the world is heading toward "grotesque inequalities," concluding: "Development that perpetuates today's inequalities is neither sustainable nor worth sustaining."
  
• UNDP calculates that an annual 4 percent levy on the world's 225 most well-to-do people (average 1998 wealth: $4.5 billion) would suffice to provide the following essentials for all those in developing countries: adequate food, safe water and sanitation, basic education, basic health care and reproductive health care. At present, 160 of those individuals live in OECD countries; 60 reside in the United States.
  
• As of 1995 (the latest figures available), Federal Reserve research found that the wealth of the top one percent of Americans is greater than that of the bottom 95 percent. Three years earlier, the Fed's Survey of Consumer Finance found that the top one percent had wealth greater than the bottom 90 percent.
  
• From 1983-1995 only the top five percent of households saw an increase in their net worth while only the top 20 percent experienced an increase in their income.
  
• Wealth projections through 1997 suggest that 86 percent of stock market gains between 1989 and 1997 went to the top ten percent of households while 42 percent went to the most well-to-do one percent.
  
• Stock market participation is broad but remarkably shallow. Though more American adults own stocks and stock mutual funds than at any time in history, 71 percent of households own no shares at all or hold less than $2,000, including mutual funds and popular 401(k) plans.
  
• Adjusting for inflation, the net worth of the median American household fell 10 percent between 1989 and 1997, declining from $54,600 to $49,900. The net worth of the top one percent is now 2.4 times the combined wealth of the poorest 80 percent.
  
• The modest net worth of white families is 8 times that of African-Americans and 12 times that of Hispanics. The median financial wealth of African-Americans (net worth less home equity) is $200 (one percent of the $18,000 for whites) while that of Hispanics is zero.
  
• Between 1983 and 1995, the bottom 40 percent of households lost 80 percent of their net worth. The middle fifth lost 11 percent. By 1995, 18.5 percent of households had zero or negative net worth (an average -$5,600, down from -$3,000 in 1983).
  
• By 1995, the middle quintile of income-earners had only enough savings to maintain their current standard of living for 1.2 months (i.e., if they lost their jobs). That's down from 3.6 months in 1989.
  
• Household debt as a percentage of personal income rose from 58 percent in 1973 to an estimated 85 percent in 1997.
  
• In 1997, 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy. That works out to roughly 7,000 bankruptcies per hour, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
  
• Though average household income rose 10 percent between 1979 and 1994, 97 percent of that gain was claimed by the most well-to-do 20 percent.
  
• In 1998, weekly wages were 12 percent lower than in 1973 on an inflation-adjusted basis. Productivity rose 33 percent over that perioo. Had pay kept pace with productivity, the average hourly wage would now be $18.10, rather than $12.77. That translates into a difference in annual pay of $11,000 for a full-time, year-round worker.
  
• Between 1970 and 1990, the typical American worked an additional 163 hours per year. That's equivalent to adding an additional month of work per year - for the same or less pay.
  
• In 1996, the Census Bureau reported record-level inequality, with the top fifth of U.S. households claiming 48.2 percent of national income while the bottom fifth gets by on 3.6 percent.
  
• In 1973, the income of the top 20 percent of American families was 7.5 times that of the bottom 20 percent. By 1996, it was 13 times.
  
• Business Week reports that in 1999 top executives earned 419 times the average wage of a blue-collar worker, up from 326:1 in 1998. In 1980, the ratio was 42:1.
  
• In 1982, inclusion on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans required personal wealth of $91million. The list then included 13 billionaires. By 1998, $500 million was required and the list included 189 billionaires. Note, however, that Forbes 1998 figures were based on a September 1, 1998 Dow-Jones Industrial Average of 7827. The Dow topped 10,000 in early 1999.
  
• The combined net worth of the Forbes 400 was $738 billion on September 1, 1998. That's up from $624 billion in 1997. That's an average one-year increase of $285 million per person. That works out to $780,000 per day or $32,500 per hour ($541 per second).
  
• Microsoft CEO Bill Gates has more wealth than the bottom 45 percent of American households combined.
  
• Spending on luxury goods grew by 21 percent from 1995 to 1996 while overall merchandise sales grew only 5 percent.

 

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Every year 15 million children die of hunger

For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years

When an article begins with stats such as those, there is no point reading further.

 

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yeah and meanwhile 5 years later every one of those fulfilled children will have 2 more starving children. the key is zero population growth and education, not money. but if its money spent on education, im all aboard.

 

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They are fulfilled? I made no such claim. Perhaps 30 million die a year. Perhaps 10 million. Perhaps they die because of poor sanitation or whatever.

The writer is making a political statement by pulling absurd stats such as how many kids could be fed for how long by the price of "one missile" out of thin air (which missile? where are the kids? On the tunda? In the south Pacific? Sub-sahara Africa? Makes a big difference. The claim as it is is meaningless).

Your claim that spending money on education and zero population growth will solve or alleviate the problem is also a political statement.

I'll make a few political statements too. People are a resource, not a problem. Hong Kong was dirt poor and jammed with refugees after the Great Leap Forward on the mainland. The UK could not afford to house, educate and feed them all. But, within a generation, HK had the highest per capita income on earth. How did they do it? A simple clear rule of law. A low flat tax with few other levies and few regulations on business. They allowed people the freedom to provide for themselves.

How do we do that in Sierra Leone? Beats me. Perhaps the west staying out and not helping would be best.

 

Muhlenberg,

You are the very image of pure ignorance...

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You have a complete disregard for other's suffering, and completely forgets that it is you that is causing their suffering when you go to a store and buy a product to support a multinational company which enslaves people. This is sick.

With the money GWB spent on that stupid war, he could have provided education, health, and basic needs for the entire continent of Africa. :bugeye:

Reaaally.... are americans ever going to stop being capitalist pigs and get out of their asses?!? :bugeye:
(generalizing, not all americans are that, just the majority)

 

The #1, by far, cause of poverty in the USA is single motherhood.

 

Since you've entered this site at least 200 people have died of starvation.
and
Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger.

so, they are considering that one reads 8 lines of text in 12 minutes?

 

Complaining doesen't cut chips! Would each of you posters in this thread list the specific things you've done this past year to help solve the problems?

 

- exposing lies
- raising awareness
- designing a plan to educate homeless people in Victoria, BC
- designing endogenous economic growth theory

.....

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TruthSeeker, kmguru, what you've listed sounds like an impressive travel brochure. I said specific.

I sent $500 to a family in Florida whose child was born with a severly disfiguring bone condition in her skull. She faces thirty or more operations over the next several years just so she can eat properly. I only know of them through a newspaper article.

Also $150 worth of school supplies to Iraq.

I sent another $500 to the American Red Cross for tsunami relief.

And then $150 to a fellow in Alaska I know only through a BBS, about to lose his job, to help him get home to South Carolina with his wife and two sons.

I've shoveled sidewalks for elderly neighbors and gone to town for groceries, mail and prescriptions for them. I've forgiven debts and picked up the difference when somebody in front of me in a grocery check-out line come up short.

All this "exposing", "designing" and "promoting" is the talk of politicians and college student do-gooders and wacko liberals with guilty consciences. It accomplishes nothing. Have you accomplished even the smallest of things for someone else?

 

I find your post somewhat hard to believe, kmguru.

 

The operative word you used was "our". You sound like you simply participate in some group/corporate effort to write proposals for charitable donations and government grants. That would only be employment, a job if you will, for a paycheck. Hardly a charitable act, but perhaps it does ease a liberal conscience.