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Global Household Resilience

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How long can the median household in each country survive income disruption before crossing the Kill Line — the point of irreversible financial collapse?

What is a Kill Line?

The point of irreversible financial collapse: eviction, debt spiral, or inability to cover basic needs, from which recovery becomes structurally impossible without external intervention.

KL Score Formula

( Liquid Savings + Monthly Surplus × Reliability Factor × 12 ) ÷ Daily Burn Rate → mapped to 1–100 scale (365-day runway = 100)

Resilience Factor (RF)

Composite 0–1 multiplier encoding the formal safety net: unemployment insurance, healthcare OOP protection, food & housing assistance, and pension security.

24

Safe Zone (70–100)

42

Resilient (40–69)

31

Vulnerable (20–39)

14

Critical (1–19)

47

Global Average KL Score
Kill Line Index — Country Rankings
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Country
Tier
KL Score
Income / Burn / RF
Band

Methodology

Data sources: Income: World Bank Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP) 2021 PPP $/day per capita. Burn rate: ICP World Bank 2023 consumer expenditure + Numbeo Cost of Living Index. Savings rate: Global Findex 2025 (145,000 adults, 141 economies). Safety net (RF): OECD Benefits & Wages 2023, OECD SOCX 2023, WHO UHC Index 2021, World Bank ASPIRE 2022, ILO World Social Protection Database 2023, OECD Pensions at a Glance 2025.

Tier 2 countries (Russia, China, India, Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan) use national statistics cross-referenced with World Bank data due to data quality caveats. Turkey applies a real-value inflation multiplier (0.55) reflecting 65% average CPI 2023–24.

Informal resilience: Multigenerational households, rotating savings clubs, and family transfer networks that reduce effective burn rates in countries like Mexico, Colombia, Vietnam, India, and Ethiopia are documented but not included in the published KL Score to preserve structural comparability.

KL Score is a snapshot of formal structural household resilience. It reflects safety net design, not implementation quality. Individual household outcomes vary significantly from the national median. Kill Line Index is published by Future The News. Not financial advice. Data as of 2025–2026.