Andrew Sullivan has a nice essay here on the "poor got poorer" canard:

In fact, the Census statistics show that the boom of the 1990s helped women more than men, and saw poverty among single, poor women, the elderly and children decline. Yes, inequality grew. But that's simply because those at the very top did spectacularly well. Those at the bottom did very well too, and those in some previously doomed groups - such as welfare mothers with children - saw serious gains.

Critics of globalization say free trade and cross-border investment have benefited the rich at the expense of the poor. They argue that the ranks of the poor are growing, and that the disparity between rich and poor has grown.
The truth is more cheerful, says Xavier Sala-i-Martin, an economist at Columbia University. He calculates that the fraction of the world's population below the poverty line (defined as an income of $2 a day in constant 1985 dollars) fell to 19% in 1998 from 41% in 1970.
Overall inequality has decreased as well. One way economists measure inequality is by the Gini coefficient, a zero-to-one scale on which zero means each person in the world has the same income and one means that a single individual collects the world's entire income. Sala-i-Martin estimates the world's Gini coefficient fell to 0.63 in 1998 from 0.66 in 1970.