MDGs are a set of goals adopted by the UN in 2000 which aim to focus on improving lives of the poorest people in the world as well [continue reading...] (chimalaya.org)
If you have doubts, compare level of life of the poorest people in the an urban ghetto in USA vs. random poor worker or peasant in USSR who lived far from the center in late 1980s or 1960s (when people were not artificially subcidized by selling oil to the west as under Brezhnev). (politics.stackexchange.com)
But, this is no dire look at the hard - scrabble life of poor people. (reelbob.com)