poverty

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Through good news and bad, poverty rates keep falling

The natural disasters, food price spikes, global economic crisis, and civil unrest of the past decade might seem to cast a shadow on the prospects for the world’s poor.

Lionel Messi, considered the world's top football player at the moment, takes aim at more than just the back of the net. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/34103436@N06/3176052482/">prettyfriendship (flickr)</a>

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FC Barcelona Takes a Shot at Polio Eradication

Many of us dream of bending it like Beckham. But star-quality soccer — football, to most of its 250 million players worldwide — is almost impossible without a healthy childhood.

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The Tricky Business of Feeding Oneself on a Dollar a Day

Over one billion people live on less than one dollar a day, according to the U.N. But what can you actually buy with a dollar?

China's getting wealthier, but the U.S. still leads by a wide margin. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mostviewed/3149594022/">Fab O Lens (flickr)</a>

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Does China's Rise Mean U.S. Decline?

For most economists, it isn't a question of if China will surpass the U.S. in terms of GDP, it's when.

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Restoring Eden

In the early 1990s Saddam Hussein drained what biblical scholars believe to be the Garden of Eden. With the water went the people, known as the Ma’dan, and their way of life. Now, Iraqi-American hydraulic engineer Dr.

A 1989 poster celebrating Congress of South African Trade Unions' Living Wage Campaign and May Day. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/egui/484824136/"/>Gardens Media Group/CAP (flickr)</a>

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The End of Poverty

In Los Angeles, California, a poor city in a debt-ridden state, a movement to end poverty is gaining popularity.

Street vendors in Calcutta are among the 300 million Indians who aren't cashing in on the prosperity generated by the growing Indian economy. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/friskodude/1176904/">FriskoDude (Flickr)</a>

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Can India's Poor Manufacture Prosperity?

Imagine the entire population of the United States — just over 300 million people — living in ramshackle homes, struggling to feed and clothe their families. That's about how many Indians are impoverished.

The money that men spend while socializing in cafes, in some cases, prevents them from meeting their families' basic needs. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kioko/3396780651/">Dave Blume (Flicker)</a>

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Sometimes the Truth Hurts

Is it mean to suggest that poor people may be responsible for their own poverty? New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof is willing to risk that label.

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'Look more "poor" for the camera!'

How many times have you seen a picture of a rural African farmer dressed in his Sunday best? Probably not very many.

An estimated 8.4 million payroll jobs were lost during the recession. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/irees/6054169/">wools (flickr)</a>

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What does it take to escape poverty?

What's most effective in helping people climb out of poverty? Jobs and education, according to New York Times columnist Nick Kristof, who cites several recent studies by economists.

Dylan's youth organization Lil'MDGs is helping UN achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Photo:<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mt_bulli/2951305057/">MT_bulli (flickr)</a>

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Using the Internet to fight poverty

One of J-PAL's studies tested the effectiveness of computer-assisted learning in certain Indian schools. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/niyam/4033649366/">niyam bhushan (flickr)</a>

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Researching Better Ways to End Poverty

A research group thinks the best way to determine whether aid programs work is to evaluate them using the scientific method.

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October Comment of the Month: Poverty Comes in Many Forms

October's comment of the month comes from James in Portland, Oregon. James commented on our story Poverty Isn't Always Ugly.

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Poverty isn't Always Ugly

Poverty isn’t always ugly. But it is always real. I recently visited the small village of Beru in the southwest corner of Haiti. For this slightly out-of-shape professor, it’s a hard day-and-a-half hike into the mountains northwest of Les Anglais.