UN finds rising prosperity in southern nations

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

UN finds rising prosperity in southern nations
| March 14, 2013 | Updated: March 14, 2013 9:37pm

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The proportion of the world's middle class living in developing nations more than doubled between 1990 and 2010 and is expected to rise to more than 80 percent of the globe's total by 2030, a United Nations report said Thursday.

The U.N. Development Program's 2013 Human Development report, released in Mexico City, says the share of middle-class people living in "the global south" expanded from 26 percent to 58 percent over 20 years.

By 2030, developing nations will have the vast majority of the world's middle-class people, and account for 70 percent of total consumer spending, it said.

The report predicts that by the end of the current decade, the economic output of Brazil, India and China will outstrip that of the United States, Germany, Britain, Canada, France and Italy combined.


Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/UN-finds-rising-prosperity-in-southern-nations-4355619.php?cmpid=usworldhcat

[JDPriestly]

1. What is happening to prosperity in the developed world?

Is it also increasing? Or declining? I tend to think it is declining, not just in relation to the rising prosperity in the developing world, but in relation to its own development.

[Posteritatis]

2. Was reading about the MDGs elsewhere yesterday...

I'm actually impressed. A lot of them weren't reached, but there were still some amazing strides taken in the last decade that have made life better for hundreds of millions of people.

(Here's hoping this thread doesn't get derailed by all the "but what about the US?!" whining...)

[pampango]

3. Great news! In the West the health of the middle class is more a function of income distribution

and how equitable/inequitable it is. For instance per capita income in the US is $49,600. With an equitable distribution of income we would have a strong middle class and little poverty. In that scenario few would complain that 'the global south' is catching up to something approaching our level of prosperity.

Instead we have by far the most inequitable income distribution of any developed country - thanks largely to our own regressive tax system and weak labor laws - which motivates some to view the improvement of life in the 'global south' with some envy and a sense that 'your prosperity is coming at our expense'.

This is great news. 95% of the world's population lives outside the US. I am sure that we all wish them the best. Here at home, we need to make our tax system more progressive, strengthen our labor laws and make many other changes so that our middle class can prosper as it does in other developed countries.