The number of slums in Chile, one of Latin America’s most prosperous and stable economies, has nearly doubled since 2011, the government said, as an influx of migrants increasingly faces a lack of low-income housing and rising rents.
The number of people living in poverty in Brazil grew by two million last year in the wake of the country's worst recession on record, according to the government statistics bureau.
The flier began circulating on social media in Honduras this month, showing a lone migrant sketched against a bright red backdrop. It was a call to join a caravan, the work of leftist activists and politicians who had helped lead migrants north in the past. But they also tossed a political spark into the mix, blaming their right-wing government for the exodus: “The violence and poverty is expelling us.”
Whoever wins Brazil’s presidential election on October 7, and the runoff on October 28, will have to convince markets, implement austerity measures while trying to drag millions people out of poverty.
About 1.2 billion children face severe risks from conflict, poverty or sexual discrimination, said Save the Children rights organization in a report published on Wednesday. The main threats to childhood are child labor, exclusion from education, early pregnancy and child marriage, with conflict often inflating the risks.
Its forecast that 24 million new posts “will be created globally by 2030”, contains the caveat that “the right policies to promote a greener economy” must also be in place for this to happen, along with better social safety nets for workers.
The gap between the super rich and the rest of the world widened last year as wealth continued to be owned by a small minority, Oxfam has claimed. Some 82% of money generated last year went to the richest 1% of the global population while the poorest half saw no increase at all, the charity said.
A stronger US economy lifted American household incomes in 2016 and drove the poverty rate down to the level seen before the financial crisis. The median household income increased by 3.2% to US$59,039, rising for a second consecutive year as more people found full time jobs.
Venezuela's economy shrank a massive 16.5% in 2016, according to an official government filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The oil-rich but impoverished country attributed the collapse to a contraction of 9.9% in the oil sector and 16.1% in the non-oil economy.
At least half of the world’s population cannot obtain essential health services, according to a new report from the World Bank and WHO. And each year, large numbers of households are being pushed into poverty because they must pay for health care out of their own pockets.