Unto the least of these

Money Matters Online: "The World Bank published the 1990 World Development Report, which established international standards for poverty classification using a Purchasing Power Parity Index, or PPPI. This amounted to understanding how much money, measured in dollars, people have for consumption of necessities if we were all on equal footing.

This index allowed for the world’s population to be more accurately classified into two groups: the Poor, who live on $2 per day, and the Ultra-Poor, who live on $1 per day, according to the PPPI.1

Using these measures, the Population Reference Bureau counts 1.2 billion people as Ultra-Poor and 2.6 billion as Poor.

Combined, this group equals 53 percent of the world’s population."