Poverty & Inequality

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More than 1.4 billion people live in poverty so extreme that they can barely survive, and around 25,000 people die from hunger each day whilst a new billionaire is created every second day. The call for a global safety net has never been so urgent - and compels the international community to transform economic priorities and guarantee the universal securing of basic human needs.

Latest Articles

Hunger Stalks World’s Wealthiest Country

More than one in 10 people in the United States go hungry, according to new official figures that suggest government food programmes are falling short in the world’s wealthiest country.

Split By Decision

The rich are getting richer due to market forces—and to very human choices, writes Daniel Gross in this Newsweek special report.

Indexing Humanity, Indian Style

117,000 Women Dead From Childbirth, But, Take Cheer, the Market is Soaring!

Rapture Rescue 911: Disaster Response for the Chosen

I used to worry that the United States was in the grip of extremists who sincerely believed that the Apocalypse was coming and that they and their friends would be airlifted to heavenly safety. I have since reconsidered.

The World's Most Deprived: Characteristics and Causes of Extreme Poverty and Hunger

A new report defines 162 million people who live in 'ultra poverty' - less than 50 cents a day. If all of the ultra poor were concentrated in a single nation, it would be the world's seventh most populous country.

Human Rights - The Economics Connection

The violence that constitutes the majority of human rights abuses is a result of the dominant powers using force to maintain a status quo of vast inequality. Of the six billion people in the world, half live on less than $2 a day, and a billion of those live on less than $1 a day. Only a small percentage of Americans will ever have a substantial interaction with the poorer half of the world’s population, and they are essentially ignored in the mainstream media. Their poverty is often fatal. Despite an abundant global food supply, over twenty thousand a day die of starvation, malnutrition, and associated diseases. Knowledge of this uncomfortable fact is limited and usually quickly forgotten.

The Economic Causes of World Hunger

On October 16, events in more than 150 countries marked World Food Day, which commemorates the founding of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, with the theme of “the right to food”.

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