Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think (Exponential Technology Series)

by Peter H. Diamandis

This too is not the problem many suspect. Take India. On August 1, 2010, India’s National Council of Applied Economic Research estimated that the number of high-income middle-class households in India (46.7 million) now exceeds the number of low-income middle-class households (41 million) for the first time in history. Moreover, the gap between the two sides is also closing rapidly. In 1995 India had 4.5 million middle-class households. By 2009, that had risen to 29.4 million. Even better, the trend is accelerating. According to the World Bank, the number of people living on less than $1 a day has more than halved since the 1950s to below 18 percent of the world’s population. Yes, there are still billions living in back-breaking destitution, but at the current rate of decline, Ridley estimates that the number of people in the world living in “absolute poverty” will hit zero by 2035.