$10 a day NOW rates as very low income relative to costs of living on the planet now. That's why Pew uses it as a baseline. 

40+ years ago, like you, I made minimum wage of $2.05/hr.. The equivalent wage today would be like $11/hr. The global poverty threshold would have been, I guess about 1/5 of $10/day. Extreme poverty would have been $0.30 a day, about.

The fabulously profitable free market economy you laud has failed to lift 71% of the world population out of poverty. And yet it has dangerously destabilized the climate, acidified the oceans and threatens ecosystems worldwide with collapse.

My pessimism is reasonable; optimism, in these circumstances, seems unwarranted, dangerous even. Optimism is a privilege of affluence.