The growing dangers of poverty and inequality At first glance, statistics show that poverty and inequality may be problems that are shrinking at a rapid rate. However, in large part because of China’s unsustainable economic growth, assessing either statistic on a global level is misleading. The fact is that inequality in industrialized nations grows worse every year, and, when China is excluded from measures of global poverty, the problem seems barely to have been addressed by some of the world’s poorest regions. This should concern everybody because both issues, historically, have had some very nasty consequences. In recent years, leaders around the world have been patting themselves on the back over the perceived progress in the global fight against poverty. And, to their credit, a few aspects of worldwide poverty are being addressed in some noteworthy ways: for example, the global childhood mortality rate has fallen by nearly 50% since 1990; pregnant women in many poorer countries are receiving improved prenatal care. On the surface, even the overarching problem of global poverty itself appears to have been addressed meaningfully in the past two decades, with the poverty rate falling 25%-30% since 1981. Unfortunately, a more detailed examination of the poverty numbers shows that China accounts for the vast majority of the reduction in global poverty. This is largely due to the huge trade surplus China has been running for the past decade, with industrialized nations pumping tens of billions of dollars into its economy every year. Without China, improvements in global poverty have been mediocre at best, with only a dismal 5%-10% reduction over the course of the past two decades contrasted with huge advancements in technology and the continued march of globalization. Adding insult to injury, in a number of critical regions, the number of people living in poverty has actually increased in recent years, with sub-Saharan Africa being among the most worrisome.