Extreme poverty has fallen to 5.9%, but 71.5% of Bangladeshis still live on less than $8.30 a day

By the World Bank’s lowest line, Bangladesh has nearly eliminated extreme poverty: just 5.9% of people lived on less than $3.00 a day in 2022, down from 25.1% in 2010. Raise the bar and the picture changes. 20.5% lived below $4.20 a day, the line the World Bank uses for lower-middle-income countries, and 71.5% lived below $8.30 a day, its line for upper-middle-income countries.

88.6% → 71.5%

Share of Bangladeshis living below $8.30 a day (2021 PPP), 2010 to 2022.

All three lines fell between 2010 and 2022. The $4.20 rate more than halved, from 52.1% to 20.5%, and the $3.00 rate fell by about four-fifths. The $8.30 rate fell by 17 percentage points, a much slower retreat, because many households that escaped the lowest line moved only a short way above it.

For policy, this suggests that a country-level success on extreme poverty hides how many households are still exposed. Families just above the lower lines can fall back after a shock, so the large group above the extreme-poverty line matters for policy as much as those below it.

One caveat: these are survey-based estimates in 2021 purchasing-power-parity dollars, derived from household surveys, and the latest year available is 2022. They should not be compared directly with national poverty-line estimates.

Source: World Bank Poverty and Inequality Platform, via World Bank WDI (SI.POV.DDAY, SI.POV.LMIC, SI.POV.UMIC).