China may have fewer poor people than the US
June Zaccone
China may have fewer people living in poverty than the US One system covers basic needs for its poor while the other doesn't Jostein Hauge Jun 12, 2026
Some readers might find it odd to even entertain the possibility that China has fewer people living in poverty than the US. China’s GDP per capita is about one-sixth of the US’ — one-third once you adjust for purchasing power. Given a gap that large, surely China must have far more people living in poverty, right?
Data from the World Bank challenges this intuition. According to the Bank, extreme poverty in China was eradicated by 2019, while the rate in the US still sits at around 1%. Extreme poverty here is defined as living on less than $3 per day, adjusted for differences in cost of living. So on the World Bank’s own benchmark, more Americans live in extreme poverty than Chinese, not only as a share of the population but also in absolute numbers, seeing that China has officially eradicated poverty.
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