In the last 20 years, poverty in Paraguay has plummeted from over 50 percent to only 16 percent in 2025. In just two decades, a third of the population has escaped poverty, with another 300,000 rising out of poverty just in the last two years.
Progress at this pace, scale, and duration does not happen by accident. Paraguay’s success is what happens when governments focus on productivity and jobs. Paraguay’s GDP growth has been nearly 5 percent per annum, among the fastest in Latin America. But for progress in poverty and shared prosperity, what drives growth matters. Labor income growth was the primary driver of poverty reduction in 2025, with the largest gains concentrated at the bottom of the income scale. Employment has grown and shifted toward more stable, better-compensated work. Sustained growth in employment and labor incomes is only possible with growth in the productivity of labor. Economic growth improves people’s lives when there is a focus on including people in an increasingly productive economy through job creation.
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Netherlands for the World Bank 