PIP Poverty projections

This dataset was created using the March 2026 vintage of Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP). This dataset contains a series of country-level and global-level poverty rate projections up to 2050, updating the projections reported in Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report (2024). The methodology and the reproducibility package for the projections can be found here.

The first two data files contain historical poverty rates from 1981 to 2026 from PIP and projected poverty rates from 2027 to 2050. Projection are based on forecasted growth rates from January-2026 Global Economic Prospects, complemented by October-2025 Macro Poverty Outlook and October-2025 World Economic Outlook. Poverty projection beyond 2030 are based on country-level average annual historical per capita GDP growth rate from 2015-2024. 

For country-level poverty rates and projections: Country_FGT_1981_2050_20260324_2021_01_02_PROD.dta

For global-level poverty rates and projections: Global_FGT_1981_2050_20260324_2021_01_02_PROD.dta

The other two data files contain projected poverty rates up to 2050 under the following 6 scenarios:

1. 2pct growth (distribution-neutral 2% annual growth)
2. 2pct growth + 1pct Gini reduction (2% annual growth combined with 1% reduction in the Gini index)
3. 2pct growth + 2pct Gini reduction (2% annual growth combined with 2% reduction in the Gini index)
4. 4pct growth (distribution-neutral 4% annual growth)
5. 6pct growth (distribution-neutral 6% annual growth)
6. 8pct growth (distribution-neutral 8% annual growth)

For country-level poverty projections: Country_FGT_VariousScenarios_2027_2050_20260324_2021_01_02_PROD.dta

For global-level poverty projections: Global_FGT_VariousScenarios_2027_2050_20260324_2021_01_02_PROD.dta

The datasets report the following main variables: code-ISO 3-letter country code, fgt0-headcount, fgt1-poverty gap, fgt2 -poverty severity, pop-population in millions, and povertyline-which reports the three poverty lines.

Additional variables included in the data containing historical poverty estimates are: World Bank regions, regionpcn-regional classification previously used in PIP, World Bank International Development Association (IDA) and Fragility, Conflict and Violence (FCV) classifications, and poorpop-number of poor in millions.

All figures are reported using 2021PPPs.

Recommended citation:

"Lakner, C., Genoni, M. E., Stemmler, H., Yonzan, N., & Tetteh Baah, S. K. (2025). Reproducibility package for Poverty, Prosperity and Planet Report 2024. World Bank. https://doi.org/10.60572/01JA-MK74". updated with Poverty and Inequality Platform (March 2026).

Disclaimer:

Since data from Greenland 2026 is not available in PIP due to missing underlying auxiliary data, it is projected using historical growth rates from the past 10 years.