Income in Sierra Leone
The median income in Sierra Leone is about $2.96 a day per person (2021 PPP dollars) — richer than 13% of everyone alive. Half of Sierra Leone lives on less than that.
The world's own median person — about $7.73 a day — would stand in the top 8% of Sierra Leone.
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The curve
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 SLE, at each point on the curve of Sierra Leone (the machine's convention: household take-home divided by the people it supports).
| Richer than… | per year, per person | per day (PPP $) |
|---|---|---|
| 10% of Sierra Leone | SLE 4,779 | $1.59 |
| 25% of Sierra Leone | SLE 6,327 | $2.10 |
| 50% of Sierra Leone | SLE 8,881 | $2.96 |
| 75% of Sierra Leone | SLE 13,300 | $4.42 |
| 90% of Sierra Leone | SLE 20,603 | $6.86 |
| 99% of Sierra Leone | SLE 64,770 | $22 |
Rounded, never inflated: the machine floors "richer than" claims.
The four levels in Sierra Leone
How much of Sierra Leone 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.
| Level | per day (PPP $) | What tends to come with it, worldwide | Sierra Leone | World |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | under $3.00 | a fire to cook on, water carried home from the well, everywhere on foot | 51% | 13% |
| Level 2 | $3.00–$8.30 | a bicycle, a gas canister for the stove, a tap within walking distance | 43% | 39% |
| Level 3 | $8.30–$33 | a motorbike, a gas stove, a bank account | 6% | 32% |
| Level 4 | $33+ | a car, a fridge, hot water from the tap | <1% | 15% |
- Level 1 · under $3.00 a daySierra Leone 51% · World 13%a fire to cook on, water carried home from the well, everywhere on foot
- Level 2 · $3.00–$8.30 a daySierra Leone 43% · World 39%a bicycle, a gas canister for the stove, a tap within walking distance
- Level 3 · $8.30–$33 a daySierra Leone 6% · World 32%a motorbike, a gas stove, a bank account
- Level 4 · $33+ a daySierra Leone <1% · World 15%a car, a fridge, hot water from the tap
About 51% of Sierra Leone lives on Level 1, under $3.00 a day per person; worldwide, roughly one in seven people do.
The line that moved
In Sierra Leone, 72% lived under the $3.00 line at the 2003 survey; 42% at the 2018 one — a fall of 30 points in 15 years.
Share of Sierra Leone 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 Sierra Leone (survey year 2018), 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 Sierra Leone's — and a few far from it, for scale.