LAC Equity Lab: A Platform for Poverty and Inequality Analysis

The LAC Equity Lab is a data-sharing platform featuring the latest microdata, indicators, tools, and analytics on poverty, shared prosperity, inequality, and equity in Latin America and the Caribbean. Explore the dashboards below for an in-depth look at the latest trends by country and region, and use our helpful tutorial to get the most out of the site.

The LAC Equity Lab is a comprehensive source of the latest data on poverty, inequality, and shared prosperity in the Latin America and the Caribbean region. The portal allows you to explore several welfare indicators for LAC countries and the region as a whole. All indicators are based on harmonized data to ensure comparability across countries and over time. Any breaks in any data series due to survey design or methodological changes are explicitly marked and labeled. 

In the past two decades, the region has seen a reduction in the number of people living in poverty by nearly half and an increase in the size of its middle class.  Income inequality also decreased, as income growth has been primarily pro-poor in recent years. Despite variations across countries, most have experienced positive welfare gains since the early 2000s.  However, the growth deceleration of 2014–2019 coupled with the dramatic fall in activity caused by the COVID-19 crisis will negatively impact living standards and well-being across the region in 2020.

New Regional Report: Regional Poverty and Inequality Update October 2024 



The SEDLAC (CEDLAS and WB) harmonization is an effort to increase cross-country comparability. However, methodological changes in the underlying surveys may result in non-comparable data that the harmonization process cannot fully solve. It is important that the user know what data is and is not comparable. For more information, visit the comparability dashboard


Welcome