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Chart: The End of World Poverty is in Sight

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The End of World Poverty is in Sight

End of World Poverty is in Sight

The number of people in extreme poverty has been cut in half since 1990.

The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.

The world is not a perfect place, and there are many injustices that still must be combatted. Just some of these include racism, sexism, income inequality, climate change, terrorism, soaring debt, corruption, and food and water security.

Many groups of people have it rough, and they deservedly have an axe to grind. There’s plenty of work to still be done.

However, sometimes we get so caught up in our day-to-day battles and the negative news stories that we forget to look at the big picture – and the big picture actually provides a lot of optimism.

Despite the majority of Americans being pessimistic about the future, the world is actually getting better as a whole: people are living longer and healthier lives, crime and violence are down, and living standards are generally improving.

Could an End to World Poverty be near?

One particular area that is fascinating to look at is poverty.

In absolute terms, the total amount of people living in extreme poverty peaked in 1970 when 2.2 billion of the world’s 3.7 billion people lived on less than $1.25 per day.

Today, in an astonishing reversal, only 0.7 billion of 7.3 billion people are below this poverty-line worldwide.

While progress has been made in many countries, the story of China is of particular interest: after market reforms started being introduced in 1978, the country grew at an average pace of 10% per year until 2010. Over this period of time, at least 800 million people were lifted out of absolute poverty.

And while there is still much work to be done, this is an undeniable step in the right direction. The U.N. even has a bold target to end extreme world poverty by 2030.

Based on the progress so far, this doesn’t seem unrealistic.

Contributing Factors

Why have we made so much progress in this realm?

One of the most important factors is very simple: it’s estimated that two-thirds of poverty reduction comes from good old-fashioned economic growth. For every 1% increase in GDP per head, poverty is reduced by 1.7%.

From 1960 to 2000, developing nations grew at an average pace of 4.3% – and from 2000 to 2010, they grew at an even faster pace of 6.0% per year. This helped lift a lot of people out of extreme poverty.

The other factor for the remaining one-third? It’s income distribution. The degree to which economic growth helps the poorest depends on their chances of getting some of that benefit.

It’s estimated that a 1% increase in GDP per head in the least equal countries only reduces poverty by 0.6%, while it does so by 4.3% in the most equal of places.

More growth and more equality will make it possible for this powerful trend in poverty reduction to continue. And by 2030 – who knows – maybe extreme levels of poverty will be an afterthought for society.

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Money

How Small Investments Make a Big Impact Over Time

Compound interest is a powerful force in building wealth. Here’s how it impacts even the most modest portfolio over the long-term.

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This bar chart shows the power of compound interest and regular contributions over time.

How Small Investments Make a Big Impact Over Time

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Time is an investor’s biggest ally, even if they start with just a modest portfolio.

The reason behind this is compounding interest, of course, thanks to its ability to magnify returns as interest earns interest on itself. With a fortune of $159 billion, Warren Buffett largely credits compound interest as a vital ingredient to his success—describing it like a snowball collecting snow as it rolls down a very long hill.

This graphic shows how compound interest can dramatically impact the value of an investor’s portfolio over longer periods of time, based on data from Investor.gov.

Why Compound Interest is a Powerful Force

Below, we show how investing $100 each month, with a 10% annual return starting at the age of 25 can generate outsized returns by simply staying the course:

AgeTotal ContributionsInterestPortfolio Value
25$1,300$10$1,310
30$7,300$2,136$9,436
35$13,300$9,223$22,523
40$19,300$24,299$43,599
45$25,300$52,243$77,543
50$31,300$100,910$132,210
55$37,300$182,952$220,252
60$43,300$318,743$362,043
65$49,300$541,101$590,401
70$55,300$902,872$958,172
75$61,300$1,489,172$1,550,472

Portfolio value is at end of each time period. All time periods are five years except for the first year (Age 25) which includes a $100 initial contribution. Interest is computed annually.

As we can see, the portfolio grows at a relatively slow pace over the first five years.

But as the portfolio continues to grow, the interest earned begins to exceed the contributions in under 15 years. That’s because interest is earned not only on the total contributions but on the accumulated interest itself. So by the age of 40, the total contributions are valued at $19,300 while the interest earned soars to $24,299.

Not only that, the interest earned soars to double the value of the investor’s contributions over the next five years—reaching $52,243 compared to the $25,300 in principal.

By the time the investor is 75, the power of compound interest becomes even more eye-opening. While the investor’s lifetime contributions totaled $61,300, the interest earned ballooned to 25 times that value, reaching $1,489,172.

In this way, it shows that investing consistently over time can benefit investors who stick it through stock market ups and downs.

The Two Key Ingredients to Growing Money

Generally speaking, building wealth involves two key pillars: time and rate of return.

Below, we show how these key factors can impact portfolios based on varying time horizons using a hypothetical example. Importantly, just a small difference in returns can make a huge impact on a portfolio’s end value:

Annual ReturnPortfolio Value
25 Year Investment Horizon
Portfolio Value
75 Year Investment Horizon
5%$57,611$911,868
8%$88,412$4,835,188
12%$161,701$49,611,684

With this in mind, it’s important to take into account investment fees which can erode the value of your investments.

Even the difference of 1% in investment fees adds up over time, especially over the long run. Say an investor paid 1% in fees, and had an after-fee return of 9%. If they had a $100 starting investment, contributed monthly over a 25-year time span, their portfolio would be worth over $102,000 at the end of the period.

By comparison, a 10% return would have made over $119,000. In other words, they lost roughly $17,000 on their investment because of fees.

Another important factor to keep in mind is inflation. In order to preserve the value of your portfolio, its important to choose investments that beat inflation, which has historically averaged around 3.3%.

For perspective, since 1974 the S&P 500 has returned 12.5% on average annually (including reinvested dividends), 10-Year U.S. Treasury bonds have returned 6.6%, while real estate has averaged 5.6%. As we can see, each of these have outperformed inflation over longer horizons, with varying degrees of risk and return.

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