In China, per capita income has grown tremendously, and India has grown at a reasonably high rate, so two countries that accounted for a large proportion of the world's poor are actually growing faster than the rich countries. But simply growing faster is not the same as Jessica's point. The gap in real dollars rises even if China grows at 8 percent, and the U.S. grows at only 2 percent. Research New England Books Etc. The gap between the rich and the poor has a political dimension, as well as an economic one, especially if it feeds back into asset formation.
Serious questions grow out of that gap.
I have to point out that the disparity in life expectancies in 1990 between Native American males in Bennett, Jackson, Shannon, and Todd counties in South Dakota and Asian females in Bergen, New Jersey, was a massive 41 years. That's almost as great as the gap between the world's richest and poorest countries. And it's rather sobering that male life expectancy in our nation's capital, at 62 years, is less than in some of the world's poorest countries, such as Iran, Tajikistan, or Vietnam. One is that the engine that has the biggest impact on poverty is growth. But that said, there are clearly many people who either don't benefit at all from growth, or don't benefit very much.