Rural poverty remains more than twice urban poverty.
Source
World Bank — https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2025/09/22/pakistan-bold-sustained-people-centered-reforms-needed-to-reduce-poverty-build-resilience-and-protect-vulnerable-populat. Verified in source set / retroactive normalization pending.
What it proves
Poverty is spatially concentrated; uniform national interventions may miss deprivation.
What it does not prove: This is a ratio, not a level: double the rural rate still leaves a large absolute urban poor population, because the urban base is smaller. The split also depends on the administrative rural/urban boundary, which the Degree-of-Urbanisation evidence suggests misclassifies dense town-like settlements as rural.
Memory hook: 2× → rural poverty double urban, on a boundary drawn administratively
Rebuts the claim: 'Poverty in Pakistan is now essentially an urban, inflation-driven phenomenon' — the rural rate remains more than twice the urban one.