Dollar street is a new and rapidly growing looking at families around the world. It puts every family along a street with poorest family on the left from the (article written in in May 2017 so change is certain/planned to happen) African nation of Burundi which has an income of $27 each month (we always use vales in US Dollars ($) so it is a fair comparison) and the richest family on the right from China with an income of $10,098 each month.
The $US income value is adjusted to something we call PPP (which stands for Purchasing Power Parity) which adjusts the income based on what it would cost to buy a typical basket of goods in a local shop. This means that we can compare fairly between people from place to place. If we did not do this a family in London would appear rich but in reality all of their money goes rent which is very high in London.
Some countries such as India have a number of different families spread along the street as India has a lot of people who are very poor but also large numbers from the middle and upper levels.
India does have over 1.3 billion people so we would expect this. However most countries have just one family to show what the typical family life is like.
Where Dollar Street is different however is that it doesn’t use numbers or writing to show the differences between people it uses pictures.
Dollar Street has sliders which you move along to compare life for the families.
Monthly income $27
The Butoyi family lives in Burundi. Imelda is 41 years old and she works as a farm labourer on her own land.
She has 4 children and they live with her in a 2-bedroom house they built from mud and poles (sticks).
It takes them 40 minutes to walk to collect water and 14 hours a week is spent gathering firewood to cook.
How Rich Am I? Calculates that 99.9% of the population of the world is richer than the Butoyi family. Check out the lives of this amazing family.
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Let us move along to $100 per month.
Guispe de Tenorio family lives in Peru. There are 8 family members which include 4 children and 4 adults. The adults work in recycling plastic business. The family lives in a 1-bedroom rented house, they pay 60 Peruvian Sols (18 USD) per month in rent.
Their house has unreliable electricity, no running water, and the toilet facility is outdoor.
Drinking water is available at a distance of 5 minutes from their house and costs them 10% of their income.
In the kitchen, they burn wood for cooking and spend 10 hours every week collecting it.
According to the How Rich Am I? website 89.2% of the world are richer so with hard work this family has just escaped the bottom 10%.
Let us move on to $1000 dollars a month and a UK family. This family has about £9,377 each year.
Monthly income
$1,040
The Fernandez family lives in London in the United Kingdom. Diego is 28 years old and works as a chef. His wife is 25 years old and she works as a waitress. They live with their son who is 1 years old.
To make it a fair comparison the family earnings are adjusted to $US purchasing power parity – this adjust values based on the different costs of different things. In London for example rent is very high costing the family $1,500 each month in rent.
The Fernandez family lives in a 2-bedroom flat.
The flat has reliable electricity, running water, and toilet facility.
The Fernandez family hardly saves any money because most of it is spent on food and rent.
How Rich Am I puts the Fernandez family into the top 25% of people in the world.
Use Dollar Street to make up a PowerPoint Slide showing what life is like for range of people.
Use Dollar Street with How Rich am I? and to try to show families from:
Where are you compared to the rest of the world?
Did you know that this morning?
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