An Antidote to Extreme Poverty: Generous Billionaires - Andrew Soergel

One extremely wealthy person could make a big difference in some countries, a new analysis shows.

Last week's record-setting Powerball lottery payout led millions of Americans to fantasize about what they'd do with a billion dollars.

Apparently, ending extreme poverty in one of the world's poorest countries would be an option, according to a report released this week by researchers at the Brookings Institution.

The report suggests that the generosity of just one billionaire would completely restructure the poverty landscape in Swaziland, whose economy is nearly 4,000 times smaller than that of the U.S. More than 40 percent of Swaziland's 1.3 million citizens live below the global poverty line of $1.90 per day, but these people could be hauled over that benchmark by a single individual's act of philanthropy, according to the report.

The Brookings researchers calculated the net worth of the richest billionaire in a handful of emerging and developing economies. In Swaziland's case, that billionaire was international business icon Nathan Kirsh, whose net worth clocks in at about $3.9 billion. If Kirsh pledged to give half of his wealth to the citizens of Swaziland over the course of the next 15 years (not entirely unlike Bill and Melinda Gates' Giving Pledge), extreme poverty would be eradicated from the country.

"In each of three countries – Colombia, Georgia, and Swaziland – a single individual's act of philanthropy could be sufficient to end extreme poverty with immediate effect," the report said. "In Brazil, Peru, and the Philippines, poverty could be more than halved, or eliminated altogether if the billionaires could be convinced to match [Facebook CEO] Mark Zuckerberg's example and increase their donation to 99 percent of their wealth."

To be fair, Zuckerberg never actually pledged to give the bulk of his wealth specifically to charity. But it's worth considering the difference only one or two extremely wealthy individuals could make in the world's fight against poverty. After all, a recent report from human rights nonprofit Oxfam suggests the 62 wealthiest individuals on the planet hold the same net worth as the 3.6 billion poorest, so the massive global wealth disparity implied by the Brookings report should come as little surprise.

Still, although the wealth gap between the world's richest and poorest has continued to widen in recent years, progress has been made. The Brookings report notes that the state of global poverty today is significantly better off than it was a few decades ago.

"The theoretical cost of transfers required to lift all poor people's income up to the global poverty line of $1.90 a day stood at approximately $80 billion in 2015, down from over $300 billion in 1980," the report said, also noting that the mean daily income of the world's most impoverished individuals rose from $1.09 in 1980 to $1.34 in 2012. - Read More at the Extreme Poverty, usnews

Billionaires Could Eradicate Extreme Poverty, Report Says