19 Out of 20 People Got This Question on Poverty Wrong Because the Media Lies to Us Non-Stop When asked whether extreme poverty had risen, fallen, or stayed the same over the past 20 years, 95% of respondents from the United States were unable to give the correct answer. Only one in 20 knew (or guessed) that poverty worldwide underwent a drastic reduction — only half of what it was two decades ago. The survey, prepared and presented by the Stockholm-based non-profit group Gapminder, covered 12,000 respondents in 14 countries, according to HumanProgress. Three Scandinavian countries canvassed had a larger percentage of correct answers, but were still below the 33% threshold random guesses would have likely left them with. Why do so many people believe world poverty is getting worse? It may have something to do with media rhetoric. One example of a term the mainstream media has slipped into the cultural zeitgeist is the “wealth gap.” This is the measure of money in between the poorest and the richest. You don’t need to search hard to find this USA Today published an opinion piece on this just Monday, replete with all the scary buzzwords: “economic inequality,” “wealth divide,” “regressive economy,” and, of course, the “wealth gap” itself.
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