Latin American Poverty Rises

The number of people living in extreme poverty in Latin America increased in 2017 to the highest level in almost a decade.

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said the proportion of people in extreme poverty, which is characterized by lack of access to basic human necessities like food and shelter, rose to 10.2 percent of the population in 2017, or 62 million people, from 9.9 percent in 2016.

The figure is the highest since 2008 and largely due to an economic deterioration in Brazil, which has only begun to rebound in the last year from its worst recession in decades. Conditions worsened in Brazil, with extreme poverty rising to 5.5 percent of the population in 2017, from 5.1 percent in the previous year, ECLAC said.