World Bank: Billions Still Lack Social Protection

A new report by the World Bank has revealed a troubling reality — nearly 2 billion people in low- and middle-income countries are still without meaningful access to social protection, despite decades of development initiatives and funding.

Titled The State of Social Protection 2025: The 2-Billion-Person Challenge, the report underscores how large portions of the global population continue to live without any form of financial safety net. Around 1.6 billion people are in households that neither receive social protection benefits nor contribute to systems like pensions or health insurance. Even among those who do receive some support, hundreds of millions still lack enough to meet their basic needs.

The coverage gap is particularly wide in low-income countries, where over 80 percent of people are unprotected or underprotected. In lower-middle-income nations, the problem persists, though to a slightly lesser degree. Social insurance programs—such as pensions and unemployment benefits—remain largely inaccessible, reaching only a fraction of the population in these regions.

While upper-middle-income countries have made moderate progress, the pace of change elsewhere remains slow. The World Bank warns that, at this rate, people living in extreme poverty in developing countries may not have full social protection for nearly two more decades. Projections suggest the poorest households in these countries won’t be fully covered until around 2045.

This report serves as a wake-up call, urging governments and development partners to prioritize inclusive reforms and significantly scale up investment in social protection infrastructure. Without bold action, billions risk being permanently excluded from systems designed to shield them from economic shocks and hardship.