poverty Increased

Poverty and extreme poverty levels rose in Latin America as a regional average in 2015 and 2016, after more than a decade of declines in the majority of countries, while in 2017 they are expected to hold steady, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said today.

In 2014, 28.5% of the region’s population was in situations of poverty (168 million people), a percentage that increased to 29.8% in 2015 (178 million) and to 30.7% in 2016 (186 million people). Extreme poverty, meanwhile, rose from 8.2% in 2014 (48 million people) to 10% in 2016 (61 million people).