Democracy Dies in Darkness
Economic Policy

The U.N. says 18.5 million Americans are in ‘extreme poverty.’ Trump’s team says just 250,000 are.

By
June 25, 2018 at 3:26 p.m. EDT
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. U.S. officials in Geneva last week accused a U.N. representative of grossly exaggerating the amount of poverty in America. (Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images)

The Trump administration says the United Nations is overestimating the number of Americans in “extreme poverty” by about 18.25 million people, reflecting a stark disagreement about the extent of poverty in the nation and the resources needed to fight it.

In May, Philip G. Alston, special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights for the U.N., published a report saying 40 million Americans live in poverty and 18.5 million Americans live in extreme poverty.