Poverty

 Did You Know?

  • Today our world houses 6.47 billion people.
  • Almost half of the people in the world live on less than two dollars a day, while over one billion people live on less than one dollar a day.
  • Today, over 11 million children under the age of 15 living in sub-Saharan Africa have lost one or both parents because of HIV/AIDS.
  • One hundred and fifteen million primary school-age children are out of school, since there are no high schools in their areas. This number equals 18% --or almost one in five-- of the children worldwide in this age group.
  • Out of the 550 million working poor in the world, an estimated 330 million, or 60%, are women.
  • Recent estimates place the number of illiterate adults at 905 million worldwide. Of this 905 million, 587 million, or 65% are women.
  •  Every day, more than 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes--one child every five seconds.
  • Those living in impoverished developing countries are more than just income poor-their lives, health, lack of education and well being are all negatively impacted by poverty.

Sources adapted from: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC, Poverty Fact Sheetwww.usccb.org/.globalpoverty   // www.vacatholic.org  // www.usccb.org/faithfulscitizenship  // www.usccb.org/sdwp