Global Growth
Growth Is the Only Cure for Poverty
Nearly 700 million people live in extreme poverty today, and economic growth is the only force that has ever pulled large populations out of it.
People living in extreme poverty right now
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Estimated so far this year.
The evidence
700 Million Still Trapped Below the Line
Roughly 700 million people live in extreme poverty on less than $2.15 a day (World Bank, 2024-2025). Sub-Saharan Africa holds just 16 percent of the world's population but 67 percent of its extreme poor.
Growth Is the Only Thing That Has Ever Worked at Scale
China lifted roughly 800 million people out of extreme poverty between 1978 and 2019, about three-quarters of all global poverty reduction in that period, on the back of growth averaging over 9 percent a year (World Bank, 2022).
The Same Worker Earns Up to 8 Times More Just by Moving
Controlling for education and skill, an identical Nigerian worker earns roughly 8.4 times more in the United States than in Nigeria (Clemens, Montenegro and Pritchett, CGD, 2009). Removing barriers to labor mobility could raise gross world product by 67 to 147 percent (Michael Clemens, 2011).
Same Starting Line, Different Finish
In the early 1960s South Korea and Ghana had comparable per-capita incomes, both under $250 a year. Today South Korea's GDP per capita exceeds $33,000, roughly 14 times Ghana's, the divergence driven almost entirely by policy choices (Hausmann, Rodrik and Velasco, 2005).
Migrants Already Outperform Foreign Aid
Migrants sent an estimated $685 billion in remittances to low- and middle-income countries in 2024, more than foreign direct investment and official development aid combined (World Bank, 2024).
A 50-to-1 Accident of Birth
Adjusted for purchasing power, people in the world's poorest economies live on GDP per capita below roughly $1,500, compared with more than $85,000 in the United States (Our World in Data).
What we can do
Phase 1: fund growth diagnostics and place policy economists directly inside low- and middle-income governments to identify each country's binding constraint to growth. Phase 2: expand legal labor mobility through sponsor-based work visas and bilateral migration agreements. Phase 3: redirect a share of rich-world philanthropic and aid capital toward export-oriented manufacturing, trade infrastructure, and institutions that let growth compound for decades.
Sources: World Bank, Our World in Data, Open Philanthropy, Center for Global Development, Michael Clemens, Hausmann Rodrik and Velasco (Growth Diagnostics, 2005)
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