About half of the entire world lives on less than about $2.50 a day. Eighty percent of the world lives on less than ten dollars a day, and incredibly, about six percent of the world somehow manages to get by on a dollar a day.
We hear figures like this and react in one of two different ways. Either we think, "Oh, but ten dollars is a lot of money in a third world country," or we go the opposite way and can't even imagine how that could be possible. Let's dispel that first myth right away.
One of my favorite countries to visit is India. And it's really an amazing country with great diversity, and as economists and politicians love to remind us, there is an economic miracle going on there with a rapidly growing service sector and a large, emerging middle class. Here in the west, we hear stories about "India, Inc." and how real wages are growing, people are buying more consumer goods, and knowledge-based jobs are popping up in all the major cities. We imagine that people in India are all driving new cars, living in big homes with new kitchen appliances, and trading in their saris and kurtas for snazzy business suits imported from Italy. We believe that India is one big "Silicon Valley" and prosperity has spread throughout the land. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
Yes, it's true that the standard of living has risen for a lot of people in India, and we can't argue against that. It's certainly a good thing that there are more jobs, and that the average wage has risen. But that newfound prosperity hasn't found its way all round the country, and there are still huge pockets of poverty and millions of people still earning the equivalent of two or three dollars a day.
Let's think about that for a moment. A weekly wage of about twenty dollars—mere pocket change for most of us. Money that in most big cities in the U.S., wouldn't even buy dinner for two at even a moderately-priced restaurant.
I met Rahul in Kolkata, who got a small (or what seems small to us) microloan of just a couple hundred dollars, and used it to open up a food stall. Now by American standards, even with his new business, he's by no means well-off, or even what we would consider to be middle-class. But he went from earning about $20 a week, to quadrupling that. Eighty dollars a week still seems poor to us, and he's still not going to be buying any new cars any time soon. He probably never will. But the increase in income means the difference between going hungry so his children can eat, and being able to feed his entire family and himself as well.
So many people in the West would discount that as irrelevant, but let's not hold the rest of the world to our own standards. Imagine yourself struggling on sub-poverty wages, and then all of a sudden you're able to quadruple your income. Even if that quadrupling is still poor by Western standards, it has made a huge difference in Rahul's life, and in the lives of his children. We at Club Asteria are always pleased to hear when microlending programs can improve peoples' lives for the better. Please support our efforts to promote microlending programs, and help put an end to the extreme poverty that robs so many people of their dignity.
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