Tracking progress to end poverty is about more than just counting the number of people living below the poverty line. It’s about understanding where these people live, who they are, and how far they are from true prosperity. The latest update of the World Bank’s subnational poverty database brings these dimensions into sharper focus.
The new release brings revised poverty lines, additional household surveys, and new indicators that track poverty and progress toward prosperity. Together, they reveal a more detailed map of development—one that reveals sharp contrasts within countries. Some regions have made rapid gains, while others, even in the same country, continue to face challenges and persistent poverty. By highlighting these differences, the data help us to see where progress is being made—and where it’s not.
Figure 1. Interactive map based on the Global Subnational Atlas of Poverty
Source: PIPMAPS, World Bank, 2025
Movers and stayers: the geography of progress
National poverty rates often suggest steady improvement. But a closer look at subnational regions reveals a split between “movers” and “stayers.” Some regions have reduced extreme poverty by half in the past decade, thanks to better jobs, infrastructure, and social investments. Others show little or no change, despite national growth.
For example, Figure 2 shows the extreme poverty rate in 2010 and 2023 for almost 1,500 subnational regions in 115 economies. Dots below the 45-degree line represent a region where poverty decreased over this period, whereas dots above this line mean that poverty increased. In 53 countries, poverty decreased in some regions over the past decade but increased in others. Poverty reduction is increasingly a story of movers and stayers.
This story matters because persistent poverty hotspots often overlap with areas facing climate risk, fragility, or weak market connections. Identifying where poverty reduction has stalled allows policymakers to direct resources to the places most at risk of being left behind.
Figure 2. Subnational movers and stayers
From poverty headcounts to prosperity gaps
Escaping poverty is vital, but it is only the first step towards shared prosperity. The updated database includes subnational indicators that track how far households are from higher living standards. The prosperity gap measures how much the average income or consumption of households falls short of reaching a level of economic well-being associated with middle-class living standards of $28 per day (2021 PPP). This perspective reveals that some regions remain far from shared prosperity and resilience, despite having low poverty rates.
In general, subnational regions with higher poverty rates also have larger prosperity gaps, as shown in Figure 3. But the data also reveal important contrasts. In some areas at the lower-left corner of the figure, only a small share of households lives below the poverty line, yet average incomes remain far from middle-class standards—often five times smaller. The poverty rate appears low, but many households remain vulnerable to shocks that could easily push them backwards.
There are also cases where prosperity gaps are similar—say, 10 times less than the middle-class threshold of $28 per day—while poverty rates remain high, ranging from 40 to 60 percent. This occurs because many households in these regions are clustered somewhere below the poverty line, so while many are counted as living in poverty, the average shortfall from prosperity is not very different.
These contrasts show why the two measures cannot be interpreted in isolation. Poverty rates capture immediate deprivation, but prosperity gaps reveal the depth of vulnerability and how far households are from secure, resilient living standards. Taken together, they highlight whether regions are merely hovering near subsistence or steadily moving toward long-term prosperity.
Figure 3. Subnational poverty versus prosperity
Why these insights matter
The latest data paint a more nuanced picture of global poverty and allow policymakers to focus on the regions that are most at risk from being left behind. Higher rates of poverty among children highlights the importance of investing in young people today to avoid entrenched poverty and inequality tomorrow. And prosperity gaps remind us that escaping poverty is not enough—resilience and opportunity are equally important.
For policymakers, this means designing strategies that are geographically targeted, generationally sensitive, and focused on long-term mobility. For researchers, it means exploring what enables some regions to move faster than others, and how children’s outcomes connect to broader development patterns. For citizens, it means recognizing that reducing poverty is a dynamic, spatial, and intergenerational challenge.
Looking ahead
The new subnational poverty data are a foundation for action. Future updates will integrate climate risk, infrastructure, and other geospatial data, helping us understand why poverty persists in some places while it falls rapidly in others.
Poverty is not evenly spread. It is spatial, it is generational, and it changes at different rates. By capturing movers and stayers across geography and population groups and revealing prosperity gaps within countries over time, this update gives us a new lens to tackle poverty and inequality. The maps are sharper than ever—and they show us where progress is happening, where it is stuck, and how far we still have to go.
Join the Conversation