Someone living below the US poverty level, earning $11,000 a year expressed as real purchasing power, is in the top 15 per cent of the world’s income distribution.
Someone earning $28,000 a year, the median individual income in the US, is in the top 5 per cent , while someone earning $52,000 a year is in the top 1 per cent.
The bottom 20 per cent of the world’s population earns less than $550 a year in US purchasing power.
Source: Thomas Nagel, Ways to Help: How to pick a charity and other means of making altruism effective, Times Literary Supplement, 20 November 2015.