This paper analyzes the evolution of poverty in Latin America. In 1998, about a third of the population was poor, and one sixth extreme poor. This represents 179 million poor people, of which 89 million lived in extreme poverty. The share of the population in poverty has decreased in the 1990s, and it is now back to its level of the mid 1980s. But due to population growth, the number of the poor has increased over the last fifteen years. The paper also investigates the impact of household characteristics on poverty, including demographics, education, employment, geographic location, migration, and ethnicity. Many of these characteristics have large impacts on per capita income and thereby on the probability of being poor or extremely poor