There are many definitions for poverty and some of the ones that I've read about are:
1) The state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions (http://www.merriam-webster.com/).
2) Poverty occurs when income falls markedly below that which the community considers necessary for decency, even if it is adequate for survival (Galbraith's The Affluent Society 1958).
3) Poverty is economic or income deprivation (Iceland Poverty in America: A handbook).
I really do not like to call these official definitions as I do not believe there is a right or wrong definition. I believe each individual depending on their society, country or culture would have a different definition of poverty through experience.
As for me, I believe poverty is the lack of or shortage of the basic necessities in life such as but not limited to food, clothing and shelter. I believe these three things are definitely required to have a decent life as a human being and to survive within the norms of society.
Session 3
This session gives a little more depth on Critical and Serious poverty level.
For food, a critical level would be not eating a meal or not having enough to eat and a serious level would be surviving without a choice of food and eating low quality/unhealthy meals.
For health care, a critical level would be not receiving medical care at all when needed and serious would be not having any health insurance at all.
For housing, a critical level would be not having your own place to live, not utilities in house and living with friends/family and serious level would be missing rent/mortgage payments, fear of being evicted and losing utilities.
This further concretes my defition of poverty i.e. lack of or shortage of the basic necessities in life such as but not limited to food, clothing and shelter.
"food, clothing and shelter. I believe these three things are definitely required to have a decent life as a human being and to survive"
ReplyDeletePoverty has to be more than those three things. just looking at those three things would mostly encompass homeless people. There needs to be a higher goal than just surviving. Any positions where you worry about surviving isn't living. Don't you think we should look beyond the bare minimum when defining poverty?
I agree, therefore I did say it was not limited to those three things.
ReplyDeleteAlso I did list these three things first, because there has to be a start somewhere where defining a line for poverty. I've seen people worst off in India than over here. Even the most poorest people here can survive in poverty and find some means to feed and cloth themselves and also find shelter, whereas there are other countries where people go without eating for days, even die of starvation (including little kids) and not have any clothes to wear or anywhere to take shelter in the harshest weather conditions.
Like I said before, it is hard to perceive poverty as it differentiates from country and culture. From my point of view, majority of the Americans have not been overseas to actually see the real poverty first hand. It's hard to view poverty through the lens of the media and the internet.