For almost the entire span of human history, nearly everyone was poor.
Then, around two centuries ago, something unprecedented happened, and average incomes began a climb that has not stopped since.
It is one of the most important stories data can tell.
TL;DR
- World average GDP per capita increased roughly tenfold between 1820 and 2010.
- Before that, incomes sat near a subsistence minimum for millennia, stagnating for eons.
- The takeoff was so uneven that by 1950 the richest countries were more than 30 times wealthier than the poorest, up from about five times in 1820.
The long-run figures here come from the Maddison Project Database, the standard reference for historical GDP, via Our World in Data.
ALSO READ: GDP vs GDP per Capita: Why a Big Economy Isn’t a Rich One
The great takeoff
| wdt_ID | wdt_created_by | wdt_created_at | wdt_last_edited_by | wdt_last_edited_at | Era | What happened to incomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 08/08/2026 11:59 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 08/08/2026 11:59 PM | Before ~1000 AD | Near subsistence, essentially flat |
| 2 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 08/08/2026 11:59 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 08/08/2026 11:59 PM | 1000 to 1820 | Slow growth, Western Europe tripled |
| 3 | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 08/08/2026 11:59 PM | emmanuel-ashemiriogwa | 08/08/2026 11:59 PM | After 1820 | Explosive, sustained growth |
The transition to modern growth had two phases: a long period of slow gains in Western Europe before 1820, followed by the sharp acceleration associated with the Industrial Revolution.
Before it, a person’s material life was much like their great-grandparents’. After it, each generation could expect to be meaningfully richer than the last.
Why growth then diverged, then converged
The takeoff did not happen everywhere at once, which created the great divergence between rich and poor nations.
Only recently, driven by the rapid growth of China and India, has global income inequality begun to decline again.
So the long arc is: near-universal poverty, then a Western takeoff that opened a vast gap, then a partial catch-up as Asia industrialized.
In the poorest countries today, average incomes remain below $1,000 a year, while in the richest they are more than 50 times higher.
ALSO READ: Is a Trade Deficit Actually Bad for the Economy?
ELI5
For almost all of history, nearly everyone was poor and stayed poor their whole life.
About 200 years ago, machines and new technology let economies start growing, and average incomes have multiplied about tenfold since.
That is how the world got rich.
Sources
Our World in Data | Maddison Project Database 2023 via OWID | OWID
