According to a new United Nations report, almost one-third of all humans are living in poverty, or very close to it. But there’s something else that should alarm us.

An additional 800 million people are at risk of slipping back into poverty, especially certain groups such as women and migrants.

According to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who contributed to the report, “Reducing vulnerability is a key ingredient in any agenda for improving human development.”

We see much suffering in so-called developing economies, where exploitation of labor is common. The response to any criticism of this suffering is typically that development lifts people out of poverty. Often, it does. But the U.N. is now warning that a great many of those people are one natural disaster or political squabble away from going back.

You can read the full report here (PDF download), and find more resources at this page.

— Posted by Peter Z. Scheer