One billion less

Over the 20 years from 1990 to 2010, about one billion people were lifted out of extreme poverty worldwide.  

In America, the poverty line is considered to be $63 per day for a family of four.  The measurement for extreme poverty in the world is $1.25 per day and the life of a person at that level is quite different.  It was this, extreme poverty, that was targeted by Millennium Development Goals  which were set in 2000 and expire in 2015.  

It was a billion people in this type of poverty who have been lifted out of it.  Read about it in The Economist.