This paper reviews many of the unique contributions of LIS in the field of empirical comparative analysis of income inequality and poverty over the past two decades, as a complement to Atkinson's article in this issue. It presents an account of poverty and inequality research based on LIS as expressed in its numerous working papers. More substantively, this paper analyses the most recent basic indicators available through LIS to juxtapose international trends in inequality and poverty and shows that in most nations these trends are not the same. In closing it discusses a few of the main challenges for the future development of microdata poverty and inequality analysis. In particular, this paper makes use of the LIS ‘Key Figures’ data which are directly available to any and all users just by clicking on the LIS website ( http://www.lisproject.org/keyfigures.htm ).