The current recession has added 100 million extreme poverty stricken people to the 1.1 billion sufferers of extreme poverty, making it 1.2 billion. In other words, out of the total world population, one in every six person is hit by extreme levels of poverty.

According to the World Bank, extreme poverty is living on less than US $1.25 per day, and moderate poverty is living on less than $2 a day. The World Bank estimated that in 2001, 1.1 billion people had consumption levels below $1 a day, and 2.7 billion lived on less than $2 a day. That means, in approximate terms, one in every three people of the world live in conditions of moderate poverty.

According to the Ebbing Tides in the Golden State report released by the Economic Roundtable, in the United States job losses due to recession are projected to cause under-employment rates of 18.5%, with nearly 2 million people in poverty and 17% in California, with nearly 6.7 million people in poverty. California recorded an unprecedented 253,000 foreclosures in 2008, more than three times the peak of foreclosures in the 1990 recession.

In 2006 the poverty rate for minors in the United States was the highest in the industrialized world, with 21.9% of all minors and 30% of African American minors living below the poverty threshold.

In the US educational system, poor children are at a higher risk than other children for retention in their grade, special placements during the school’s hours and even not completing their high school education.

Brain drain, one of the initiators of poverty for poor nations, has cost the African continent over $4 billion in the employment of 150,000 expatriate professionals annually.

Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia are the most affected by brain drain. According to UNDP, "Ethiopia lost 75% of its skilled workforce between 1980 and 1991". There are more Ethiopian doctors in Chicago than there are in Ethiopia. Over 80% of Jamaicans and Haitians with higher education live abroad.

The UNDP estimates that India loses $2 billion a year because of the emigration of computer experts to the U.S. Indian students going abroad for their higher studies costs India a foreign exchange outflow of $10 billion annually.

One third of deaths, some 18 million deaths a year or 50,000 deaths per day, are due to poverty-related causes. Total 270 million people, most of them women and children, had died as a result of poverty since 1990. Every year nearly 11 million children living in poverty die before their fifth birthday. 800 million people go to bed hungry every night. There are over 100 million street children worldwide.

Some countries can have economic growth and reduce poverty while other poor nations cannot. For the poorest country, poverty reduction is simply impossible without economic growth. For example, in 2008 Sierra Leone had an annual per capita income of $677. This means that in Sierra Leone, even with a perfectly equal distribution of income the poverty rate would be 100%.

Instances of good governance leading to economic development and poverty reduction can be seen in countries such as Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea, and Vietnam. These nations have the will and authority to create and maintain policies that lead to long-term development that helps all their citizens, not just the wealthy.

The best prospects for economic growth and poverty reduction have been found in China, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia. In Thailand the economy has grown at double-digit rates since the early 1980’s. China has been the world leader in economic growth since 2001, recording the highest rate of growth of GDP at 13% per year.

Interestingly, it took 60 years for England to double its per capita income when the Industrial Revolution began. It took 50 years for USA to double its per capita income during the American economic take-off in the late nineteenth century. But currently, several East Asian and Southeast Asian countries have been doubling the growth of their economies every 10 years.