Global Middle Class Booming; Poverty Declining

The Christian Science Monitor's Surging BRIC middle classes are eclipsing global poverty does a great job describing the surging number of people entering the middle class around the world.  Key quote:

"By 2030, the global middle class is widely projected to at least double in size to as many as 5 billion – a surge unseen since the Industrial Revolution. This boom, however, is more global, more rapid, and is likely to have a far different – and perhaps far greater – impact in terms of global power, economics, and environment, say economists and sociologists."

This boom in middle class consumers is being driven by the impressive economic growth of the developing world, and in particular the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). 

The increase in the size of the global middle class is also resulting in declines in the global poverty.  According to the article:

"The world will, for the first time in history, move from being mostly poor to mostly middle-class by 2022, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development projects."

The rise of the developing world is one of the most important trends we follow.  Last year in the Intuit 2020 report we forecast that 1 billion middle class consumers would join the global economy by 2020.  The forecasts presented in this article are even more aggressive. 

Comments

[Ivan Walsh]

Is this because we have changed as a society or…

someone changed the definition of middle class to skew the real underlying figures?

[steve]

Ivan: Economic growth is causing the reduction in poverty. The defintion of middle class has stayed pretty consistent over the last few decades.

Having said that, the OECD definition of middle class is around $2000 in annual purchasing power parity income. Pretty low relative to developed world definitions of middle class.