Figure 2. As the number of absolutely poor people in the world has declined, the number of relatively poor people has risen, 1981–2008.

Note: Absolutely poor is defined as an income of less than $1.25 a day; relatively poor refers to people with incomes below a socially acceptable level, which is often higher than the absolute poverty line. Data cover 100 countries.

Source: Ravallion, M., and S. Chen. “Weakly relative poverty.” Review of Economics and Statistics 93:4 (2011): 1251–1261 [13].