The Perspective Machine ← the machine

Income in Gabon

The median income in Gabon is about $9.66 a day per person (2021 PPP dollars) — richer than 57% of everyone alive. Half of Gabon lives on less than that.

The world's own median person — about $7.73 a day — would stand in the bottom 38% of Gabon.

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The curve

$1$10$100 median

Daily income per person, log scale, PPP dollars — the same curve the machine walks you across.

What it takes to stand where

Take-home income per person, in today's XAF, at each point on the curve of Gabon (the machine's convention: household take-home divided by the people it supports).

Richer than…per year, per personper day (PPP $)
10% of GabonFCFA 477,079$3.92
25% of GabonFCFA 730,547$6.00
50% of GabonFCFA 1,176,552$9.66
75% of GabonFCFA 1,888,820$16
90% of GabonFCFA 2,912,439$24
99% of GabonFCFA 6,489,012$53

Rounded, never inflated: the machine floors "richer than" claims.

The four levels in Gabon

How much of Gabon and of the world lives on each of four income levels. The cuts are the World Bank's $3.00 (international poverty line) and $8.30 (upper-middle-income line), both 2021 PPP; the top cut, $33, is the machine's own, four times the $8.30 line. The objects are what an income on each level tends to buy across the world's surveys — not a description of any one country.

Levelper day (PPP $)What tends to come with it, worldwideGabonWorld
Level 1under $3.00a fire to cook on, water carried home from the well, everywhere on foot6%13%
Level 2$3.00–$8.30a bicycle, a gas canister for the stove, a tap within walking distance35%39%
Level 3$8.30–$33a motorbike, a gas stove, a bank account55%32%
Level 4$33+a car, a fridge, hot water from the tap4%15%

About 55% of Gabon lives on Level 3, between $8.30 and $33 a day per person; worldwide, about 32% of people do.

The line that moved

In Gabon, 9.2% lived under the $3.00 line at the 2005 survey; 3.8% at the 2017 one — a fall of 5 points in 12 years.

50% 0 1990 today

Share of Gabon under $3.00 a day (2021 prices) at each national survey, World Bank PIP via Our World in Data; the faint line is the world's.

Worldwide, the share under the World Bank's $3.00-a-day line fell from about 43% in 1990 to about 10% today (Our World in Data; the latest years are the Bank's nowcast). Where the lift came, it came the unglamorous way: wages, harvests, workshops.

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Where this comes from

The World Bank's Poverty and Inequality Platform percentile distribution for Gabon (survey year 2017), in 2021 PPP dollars; incomes typed in today's money are deflated to 2021 prices with the national CPI and converted with the 2021 consumption-PPP factor. Snapshot fetched September 2026. Full methodology & honesty rules.

Neighbours on the curve

The countries whose median income sits nearest to Gabon's — and a few far from it, for scale.

AzerbaijanNicaraguaGeorgiaPeruMoldovaLebanonSwitzerlandfor scaleIndiafor scale

All 145 countries