RIO DE JANEIRO: The World Bank has said that 22 per cent of Brazilians live under the poverty line.
Categorized as a higher-middle-income country, Brazil has around 45.5 million people living on less than $5.5 a day, the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper said, citing a World Bank report.
It is said that the World Bank changed the way it measured poverty, raising the poverty line from $1.9 to $3.2 for lower-middle-income countries and $5.5 for high-middle-income countries, Xinhua news agency reported.
According to previous World Bank studies, only 8.9 per cent of Brazilians lived under poverty line on less than $1.9 a day.
"Few people live on $1.9 a day in Brazil. But people who are living on $2 are still poor for Brazilian patterns and for higher-middle-income countries," said Francisco Ferreira, a World Bank economist.