> People living in Kenya on 65 cents a day is a completely different situation than, say, a homeless person in San Francisco.
That's true, this is why we usually mention the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) converted number -- for example, a billion people live on less than the PPP-converted equivalent of USD $2/day. That means they can afford to buy what we can afford to buy in the US for less than $2/day, which is to say almost nothing.
It's easy to look up the PPP ratio for Kenya, which is 0.5 -- i.e. $0.65/day in Kenya buys roughly the same as $1.30/day would in the US.
That's true, this is why we usually mention the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) converted number -- for example, a billion people live on less than the PPP-converted equivalent of USD $2/day. That means they can afford to buy what we can afford to buy in the US for less than $2/day, which is to say almost nothing.
It's easy to look up the PPP ratio for Kenya, which is 0.5 -- i.e. $0.65/day in Kenya buys roughly the same as $1.30/day would in the US.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/PA.NUS.PPPC.RF