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Countries by percentage of population living in poverty.
Methodology
"Poverty" is defined as an economic condition of lacking both money and basic necessities needed to successfully live, such as food, water, utilities, and housing. There are many working definitions of "poverty," with considerable debate on how to best define the term.
Lack of income security, economic stability and the predictability of one's continued means to meet basic needs all serve as absolute indicators of poverty. Poverty may therefore also be defined as the economic condition of lacking predictable and stable means of meeting basic life needs.
The first table lists countries by the percentage of their population with an income of less than $1.90 and less than $3.10 US dollars per day in 2011 dollars at Purchasing power parity. The data is from the most recent year available from the World Bank API.
The second table lists countries by the percentage of the population living below the national poverty line — the poverty line deemed appropriate for a country by its authorities. National estimates are based on population-weighted subgroup estimates from household surveys.
Definitions of the poverty line vary considerably among nations. For example, rich nations generally employ more generous standards of poverty than poor nations. Even among rich nations, the standards differ greatly. Thus, the numbers are not comparable among countries. Even when nations do use the same method, some issues may remain.
Only countries for which sourced data are available are listed. Data for countries, including Libya, remain unavailable. It's usually accepted, that one third (33.3%) of the population in Libya live below the poverty line.