ABSTRACT
This essay is premised on the notion that policy-makers and involved lay readers are entitled to have an insight into how global money-metric poverty statistics are presently (unreasonably) conceptualised—and how they might be (more reasonably) formulated. This is a matter of such direct, if foundational, global justice that it deserves a widespread and inclusive understanding of the issues involved. Accordingly, the essay is aimed at presenting an expository account of the World Bank’s methodology of assessing country-specific and global income-poverty. The methodology, in the author’s view, is logically flawed, apart from being politically conservative. The present essay has been written, with a view to stimulating the widest possible popular interest, in the style of one of Leo Rosten’s well-known H*y*m*a*n K*a*p*l*a*n stories.
