China raises poverty line, increasing number of official poor by 100 millio

[Adnan Faruqi]

China raises poverty line, increasing number of official poor by 100 million

BEIJING — Even with its booming economy, China now has more poor people — at least officially.

A sharp upward revision in the official poverty line, announced by the government Tuesday, means that 128 million Chinese in rural areas now qualify as poor, 100 million more than under the previous standard.

The new threshold of about $1 a day nearly doubles the previous amount. While the revised poverty line is still below the World Bank threshold of $1.25 a day, the change brings China closer to international norms and better reflects the country’s overall higher standards of living after three decades of buoyant growth.

The old limit, first set in the 1990s and notched up periodically thereafter, focused on the bedrock poor at a time China was still largely rural and impoverished. As the country has climbed toward middle income status, experts from the World Bank and Chinese think tanks have urged the government to raise the threshold to capture more poor Chinese.

“The previous poverty line underestimated the number of poor people in rural China,” the official newspaper China Daily quoted Wang Sangui, a rural development expert at Renmin University, as saying. “Only 2.8 percent of the rural population was officially considered poor, which was lower than in many developed countries such as the United States, which has a poverty rate of about 15 percent.”

With the higher threshold, more people qualify for government assistance. Funding for poverty relief is also being raised more than 20 percent this year to 27 billion yuan, or $4.2 billion, the China Daily reported.


China raises poverty line, increasing number of official poor by 100 million - The Washington Post

 

[rcrmj]

we should raise the poverty line even more``we should have it to $5 a day like the minimun income lines in the urban areas

 

[Lyrical Mockery]

i think this is a good move by the Chinese govt. A lot of people stand to benefit from this.

and look at our govt. trying to move down the poverty line. tsk tsk

 

[danger007]

we should raise the poverty line even more``we should have it to $5 a day like the minimun income lines in the urban areas

BUT 128 million comes under 1 $ per day.

 

[indiatester]

Modifying definition of poor does not actually increase or decrease the number of poor in any country. It is very useful to allocate appropriate funds to help the desired set of people and create various schemes to help them.

 

[lamlap]

BUT 128 million comes under 1 $ per day.

India 780 millions comes under 1$ per day. IMF reports

 

[danger007]

India 780 millions comes under 1$ per day. IMF reports

i expected this kind of post. thanks anyways, some thing burning out there.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

it is outrageous that in a country that spans the tropics, temperate and arctic, in a country with some of the richest resources and highest human capital in the world, that we still have 100 million below 1 dollar a day. This is a colossal and collective failure of government, of business, and of ourselves. More importantly, it is a failure for us to escape the neocolonial slave mentality and to resist the oppression of the West. If half the Chinese who bought an iPhone made in Shenzhen and dropped it for a ZTE Blade also made in Shenzhen, we would eliminate half this poverty.

Wake up! Who is causing our poverty? OURSELVES. We are slaves to our own inferiority complex.

 

[Nomenclature]

The new threshold of about $1 a day nearly doubles the previous amount. While the revised poverty line is still below the World Bank threshold of $1.25 a day.

First WSJ and now WaPo. I guess I was simply expecting too much professionalism from the mainstream media. Anyway, I just want to remind everyone on this thread that the World Bank's $1.25 a day poverty line is based on purchasing power parity. Some simply Googling and calculation shows the new Chinese poverty line is in fact above the World Bank standard.

To make consistent international poverty comparisons, one must use a poverty line that reflects the same level of purchasing power across countries. The latest World Bank estimation of the extreme poverty line is US$ 1.25 a day (in 2005 PPP $). Higher poverty lines such as $2 a day (in 2005 PPP$) may be more appropriate for countries at a higher level of development.

Poverty - Europe & Central Asia Poverty Data

 

[rcrmj]

BUT 128 million comes under 1 $ per day.

whats your point? we are capable enough to have 128million at $5 per day, how about your gov to make sure 200 million $0.2 to have enough food to eat?

---------- Post added at 04:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:17 PM ----------

i expected this kind of post. thanks anyways, some thing burning out there.

lol``classic delusional indian reaction

 

[huskie]

I mentioned the fact that "China raised its poverty line, and India lowered it" in the recently locked Indian poverty thread. And @INDIC challenged me to provide some proof. Frankly I thought this is something an Indian should know as both news pieces were widely reported in 2011/2012. Apparently ignorance always prevails. Anyway, this old post was the proof of China raising its poverty line. Here is the part for the India lowering its poverty line:

Now, Planning Commission lowers the poverty line | The Hindu

The Planning Commission on Monday released the latest poverty estimates for the country showing a decline in the incidence of poverty by 7.3 per cent over the past five years and stating that anyone with a daily consumption expenditure of Rs. 28.35 and Rs. 22.42 in urban and rural areas respectively is above the poverty line.

Click here for PDF

The new poverty estimates for 2011-12 will only add to the furore triggered by the Commission's affidavit in the Supreme Court in October in which the BPL cap was pegged at an expenditure of Rs. 32 and Rs. 26 by an individual in the urban and rural areas respectively at the going rate of inflation in 2010-11.

Eventually, Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh and Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia jointly set aside the cap suggested by the Tendulkar Committee and set up a new committee to work out a new methodology for identifying the BPL households.

Mr. Ramesh told The Hindu that the present system had to be continued till a new one was worked out and that would be done only after the Socio-economic and Caste Census was completed.

Similarly, Planning Commission members Abhijit Sen and Mihir Shah separately underlined the need to adopt the same methodology to understand the impact of government spending on the people and across the States over a period of time.

Mr. Sen clarified that the figure of expenditure in the Supreme Court affidavit had been arrived at by adjusting the figures for 2004-05 with the prevailing inflation rate in 2011-12 and not based on the survey conducted across the country.

He said the survey for 2011-12 is likely to be completed by July and the report would be released in December.

Dr. Shah told The Hindu that government programmes had been delinked from the poverty line estimated on the basis of the Tendulkar methodology which was only being used to understand the impact of government programmes over a period of time.

Accepting that the poverty line was linked to the PDS system, Mr. Sen said the Food Security Bill had defined poverty in such a way that it would have a bearing on the beneficiary.

He said Parliament, the government and the Supreme Court would together decide the people who should be brought under the food security entitlement net.

The impact of the new list will be felt on the Rural Development Ministry schemes, particularly those availing various kinds of pension under the National Social Assistance Programme.

As per the Household Consumer Expenditure Survey for 2009-10, 29.9 per cent of the population alone were under the Below Poverty Line (BPL) from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05.
Rural poverty

Rural poverty has declined by eight percentage points, from 41.8 per cent to 33.8 per cent, and urban poverty by 4.8 per cent, from 25.7 per cent to 20.9 per cent.

At the national level, anyone earning Rs. 672.8 monthly that is earning Rs. 22.42 per day in the rural area and Rs. 859.6 monthly or Rs. 28.35 per day in the urban area is above the poverty line. Population as on March 1, 2010 has been used for estimating the number of persons below the poverty line.

The total number of people below the poverty line in the country is 35.46 crore as against 40.72 crore in 2004-05. In rural areas, the number has come down from 32.58 crore five years ago to 27.82 crore and the urban BPL number stands at 7.64 crore as against 8.14 crore five years ago.

One of the most astonishing revelations is that poverty has actually gone up in the north-eastern States of Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland.

Even big States such as Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh registered only a marginal decline in poverty ratio, particularly in the rural areas, whereas States such as Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttarakhand saw about 10 per cent decline in poverty over the past years.

States with high incidence of poverty are Bihar at (53.5 per cent), Chhattisgarh (48.7 per cent), Manipur (47.1 per cent), Jharkhand (39.1), Assam (37.9 per cent) and Uttar Pradesh (37.7 per cent).

However, it is in poverty-ridden Odisha that monthly per head expenditure of just Rs. 567.1 and Rs. 736 in rural and urban areas respectively puts one above the poverty line, while in Nagaland, where the incidence of poverty has gone up, the per capita consumption expenditure of Rs. 1016.8 and Rs. 1147.6 in rural and urban areas puts one above the poverty level.

Among social groups in the rural areas, Scheduled Tribes (47.4 per cent) suffer the highest level of poverty, followed by Scheduled Castes (42.3 per cent), Other Backward Castes (31.9 per cent) as against. 33.8 per cent for all classes.

In rural Bihar and Chhattisgarh, nearly two-third of the SCs and the STs are poor where as in States like Manipur, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh it is more than 50 per cent.

In urban areas, 34.1 per cent of SCs, 30.4 of STs and 24.3 per cent OBCs fall under this category against 20.9 per cent for all classes.

Keywords: poverty estimates, Planning Commission

 

[shuttler]

Not enough. We still have 10~15% abject poor even the poverty line is raised. I wish my Government to combat corruptions seriously and use the money for our very poor!

 

[faithfulguy]

a good list

List of countries by percentage of population living in poverty - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[INDIC]

I mentioned the fact that "China raised its poverty line, and India lowered it" in the recently locked Indian poverty thread. And @INDIC challenged me to provide some proof. Frankly I thought this is something an Indian should know as both news pieces were widely reported in 2011/2012. Apparently ignorance always prevails. Anyway, this old post was the proof of China raising its poverty line. Here is the part for the India lowering its poverty line:

Now, Planning Commission lowers the poverty line | The Hindu

Does it mean China wasn't following world bank norms to define poverty. Did you read the poverty line in dollars in the opening post defined by Chinese government.

 

[djsjs]

it's very brave for one to talk about poverty of another country when his own is times poorer

it's very brave for one to talk about poverty of another country when his own is times poorer