Pundit falsely claims World Bank classifies Australia as 'third world country'

"Australia is now classified by the world bank as a third world country," says part of the caption of an X video shared on July 16, 2026.

"Labor and Albanese have destroyed Australia and must be held accountable," it adds, referring to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

The nearly one-minute-long video shows a man wearing a cap that reads "Unemployable", speaking on a podcast.

He says: "Australia is officially now classified by the World Bank as a third world country because when your growth management strategy goes past 2.5 percent, you are then considered a third world country, which means your infrastructure can no longer keep up with your growth."

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Screenshot of the false post captured on July 17, 2026, with red Xs added by AFP

The clip, which was posted elsewhere in similar X posts and on Instagram, was also shared by a right-wing political party on TikTok.

"Not surprised," says one commenter, while another blamed people who voted Labor as "the actual root cause of the problem".

The original video was posted on Instagram in June by the Unemployable podcast that, according to its official YouTube page, puts out content for people "who don't fit standard career paths" (archived link).

The man in the cap is Kevin Doodney, a self-proclaimed "housing futurist" with decades of experience in real estate, and he has appeared in previous Unemployable podcast episodes (archived here and here).

AFP reached out to Doodney for clarification on his statement, but has not yet received a response.

However, a Google keyword search for the World Bank's latest country classifications shows that Australia is considered a high-income economy, and has been for many years (archived link).

The latest assessment was updated on July 1, according to the World Bank data blog, with no changes made to Australia's classification (archived link).

"The World Bank has not classified Australia as a 'third world country' and no such classification exists within the World Bank's analytical framework," a World Bank spokesperson told AFP by email on July 17, adding that "Australia is a high-income country."

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Screenshot of the World Bank data blog (L) and the World Bank's latest classifications showing Australia as a high-income country, highlighted in green by AFP

The other groups are "low income", "lower-middle income" and "upper-middle income" economies.

According to the World Bank's calculation method, the average income of a resident from low-income economies is $1,175 or less in 2025, while a high-income economy is one "with more than a GNI per capita of $14,375" (archived link). 

The term "third world" was coined in 1952 by a French demographer under the backdrop of the Cold War, and has been discarded by most development agencies (archived here and here).

According to a BMJ Global Health paper published in 2022 about how the global development circle classifies countries, using the term is "racist in its implications as the 'Third world' signifies a backwardness as compared to others".

Another agency, the International Monetary Fund, uses a different classification, defining countries by two groups -- "Advanced Economy" and "Emerging and Developing Economies".

It classifies Australia as an "Advanced Economy" (archived link).