Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!): The US poverty threshold, below which one qualifies for government assistance, is $6625 per person for a family of four. In Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries, the median income is a twelfth of that (adjusted for purchasing power). Without a change in growth rates, it will take Malawi almost two centuries to catch up to where the US is today.
This example illustrates the development gap: the difference in living standards between high and low income countries. Working on this is important both for the wellbeing of those alive today, and because it allows more people to participate meaningfully in humanity’s most important century and therefore help those in the future too.
(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)
Post summary (feel free to suggest edits!):
The US poverty threshold, below which one qualifies for government assistance, is $6625 per person for a family of four. In Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries, the median income is a twelfth of that (adjusted for purchasing power). Without a change in growth rates, it will take Malawi almost two centuries to catch up to where the US is today.
This example illustrates the development gap: the difference in living standards between high and low income countries. Working on this is important both for the wellbeing of those alive today, and because it allows more people to participate meaningfully in humanity’s most important century and therefore help those in the future too.
(If you’d like to see more summaries of top EA and LW forum posts, check out the Weekly Summaries series.)