THE LIVES OF THE POOR ARE LONGER NOW.

THE LIVES OF THE POOR ARE LONGER NOW. I posted here and here about how up to forty per cent of the people in the world are still living on less than one dollar a day and how far short this falls of the hopes of forty years ago. I should note, as Joe Perkins did in The Times Literary Supplement (June 7, 2007), that there has been “a remarkable increase in life expectancy in a typical poor country, from 48 years to 68 over the last four decades.” This wikipedia article has more data, including the fact that “Life expectancy in India at mid-century was around 32, by 2000 it had risen to 64 years.” Changes in longevity are, as a matter of arithmetic, evenly distributed across income groups. The poor must be living longer—and be better off—in poor countries. This is obviously a major accomplishment of the last forty years.