Absolute Poverty ( AP )

Poverty affects over 767 million people in the entire world. In the United States alone, poverty affects more than 42 million people. According to feedingamerica.org, of that 42 million affected, 13 million children and over 5 million seniors live in poverty. Poverty is grouped into two different categories; absolute and relative. Wikipedia.org defines absolute poverty as the absence of enough resources to secure basic life necessities. This includes not having safe drinking water, not having clean bathroom facilities, not being able to get proper healthcare, not having access to education and not having proper shelter. Absolute poverty is also referred to as living in extreme poverty. Relative poverty, according to wikipedia.org, is the condition in which people lack the minimum amount of income needed in order to maintain the average standard of living in the society in which they live. The meaning of poverty varies from country to country and person to person. For example, while some people in the United States would be considered as living below the poverty line, a person from another country may consider that person rich. However, poverty is simply when an individual is unable to meet their basic needs. This includes not being able to clothed, house or feed oneself or one’s family. Poverty is a problem that will not be easily solved. There have been many attempts to try and end poverty, but yet it continues to grow. In a country such as the United States that’s

The UK government, however, uses a different definition of absolute poverty: The measure used by the DWP seems to be more accurately described as a minimum acceptable standard of living over time. This standard is set relative to what people earned in 2010/11: the threshold is a household earning less than 60% of the 2010/11 median after taxes and transfers, adjusted for household size and composition.

Is the poverty line a realistic measure? Can families whose income is at the poverty line have enough money to secure the basic needs to live in America today? Can people hold a steady job, work full time and still find themselves falling below the poverty line?

Absolute poverty measurements are based upon a worldwide standard. They measure if a person is too able to earn enough money to satisfy the basic needs of individuals . This formation therefore looks at deprivation since it looks to see if you have enough to survive. Additionally this standard is a worldwide standard of what it expected to be needed by individuals to survive. Thus the absolute poverty measuring is a more fixed and world standard of measuring poverty. The Canadian version of this measurement is the MBM. It defines poverty as anyone who has a yearly income below the market basement, the amount that is defined as the minimum needed to have the access to the most basic necessities of life . The basement though will change as newer technological advances are deemed necessary for basic living . In 1988 this poverty line the market basement was $20,230 for a four person family. This is “roughly half of the LICO… poverty line incomes”

Poverty is a big problem in the United States. According to Charles Zastrow, “in 2012 over forty-six million people, about fifteen percent of our population was living below the poverty line” (p. 117). In other words, there were a great amount of people living below the poverty line the poverty line. The poverty line is the minimum level of income needed for secured needs of life according to the government. Poverty causes malnutrition, homelessness, School dropout’s drug abuse, and much more.

There are different types of poverties, relative, absolute and subjective poverty. Relative poverty is a state of living where people can afford necessitates but are unable to meet their society’s average standard of living. Relative poverty is the idea of keeping up with those individuals around you. Second, there is absolute poverty that demonstrates the lack of basic necessities, which include food, clean water, safe housing and access to healthcare. Those who live on less than $1.25 a day have defined this. In addition, in 2011, 17 percent of people living in the developing world lived at or below $1.25 a day. I currently live on $52.00 a day and I find myself to barely manage necessities. It’s been crystal clear lately on what I can afford and what I need. Lastly, subjective property is composed of many dimensions, when

Poverty is not only an individual problem, but a societal problem. Harrell R. Rodgers wrote an article, “Why are People Poor in America?” Rodgers gives two categories of theories that are used when cultural /behavioral or structural/economic. Behavior/culture theorists look at the behavior, culture and values of the poor as the reason for poverty. While structural /ecIn western culture statistics are an excessively used tool in describing social issues. Numbers help explain a situation, but in excesses, can dehumanize a population. A serious social issue that suffers from desensitization is poverty. Poverty, as it is defined by Webster, is the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of supporting; the condition of being poor. The condition of poverty plagues many American families. According to the Census bureau, 15.1 percent of the United States population falls below the poverty threshold. 15.1 percent does not draw the same effect as the actual 46.6 million individuals living in those circumstances. In the United States, poverty has become a growing problem. There are 15 million more people living in poverty today than in the year 2000 (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2013). The poverty threshold, developed by Molly Orshansky, is a tool used to help indicate how many Americans are in poverty. According to the census, 46.6 million of America’s total population makes less than the poverty threshold for a family of four. The condition of being

As explained by George Ritzer, the poverty line is a set value, in terms of income, that establishes who is considered to be living in poverty (Ritzer 220). In the article, Deaton mentions how the World Bank does not take into consideration the costs of necessities in different countries (Deaton). In the United States the Social Security Administration sets the poverty line, and while they do not set it for different countries they do set it for all fifty states of America. Most people can agree

Poverty is an authentic life issue people all over the world continue to struggle with. There are many countries that try to help those in poverty, but a complete solution has not been found. Although there are countless definitions of poverty, according to Schwartz, he states in his article the United States Government says; “Poverty is a state of deprivation, or a lack of the usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions”. The government calculates poverty based on the total income a person may receive and it does not include non-cash supplements (Schwartz).

Poverty is a big problem in America although outsiders see Americans as “the rich”. Poverty is defined as not having money and being poor. Another way of defining poverty is not having the sufficient needs to survive properly in this world and economy. The social problem of poverty is a severely entrenched abrasion that diffuses every aspect of culture and society. Poverty is socially structured by status. The main social component that deals with poverty is social class. There are three levels of social class: lower, middle, and upper; all of which are often categorized by a certain amount of money determined by the poverty line. Like stated in the book, “To determine who is poor, the U.S. government draws a poverty line.” (224). Some of the

Poverty is a complex societal issue, which includes social, economic and political elements. It is a lack of necessary means to fulfil basic human needs including food, shelter, clothing etc. The U.S. Census Bureau defines poverty as living in a household with a total cash income below 50 percent of its poverty threshold. Official poverty rates in the US as estimated by the Bureau is 12.7 percent for 2016. Official measures concluded that 43.1 million Americans lived in poverty that year, nearly 1 in every 6 people. The measure is based on information provided from the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement. The survey is sent to U.S. households, so the poverty estimates do not include those who are homeless. (Semega,

According to Pogge (2008), poverty is a state at which individuals are not able to fulfill their basic human needs of food, shelter and clothing. This is taken in the context of quality and insufficient amounts in quantity. Poverty is categorized into two main classes, absolute and relative

This definition can be used throughout the world to define absolute poverty because basic needs are the same for all humans. A fixed income is often used to define absolute poverty throughout the world; living on less than $1-2 per day (Palmer, G, 2010). The difficulty with this figure is that in richer countries it will still be impossible to obtain the basic needs on that amount of money whereas in poorer countries it may be possible to live on such a low sum, albeit with great difficulty. This illustrates the problem that placing a figure of money to define poverty creates and shows why the different term, relative poverty, is often used.

In 2010, about 46.2 million people were considered poor. The nation’s poverty rate rose to 15.1 percent, whereas in 2009, 14.3 percent of people in America were living in poverty (Censky, 2011). That is an increase of 2.6 million people in 2010. In the United States, the federal poverty line – an absolute measure of annual income – is frequently used to determine who is categorized as poor (Ferris & Stein, 2008, 2010). Currently the government defines the poverty line as an income of $11,139 for an individual and $22,314 for a family of four (Censky, 2011). In sociology, poverty can be defined using two terms – relative deprivation and absolute deprivation. Relative deprivation is a comparison between people and social class. With

There are several types of poverty, the most appalling form of poverty is absolute poverty; this type of poverty can be defined as the inability to secure the basic necessities for physical survival (Richmond and Saloojee, 2005, p.35).This is usually measured by comparing income to expenses used to buy goods and services. Organizations usually define absolute poverty in terms of people who live on less than $1.25 a day, international organizations such as the World Bank use these types of monetary figures to measure poverty (Murray, 2011, p.245). Other organizations and economists, politicians and humanitarians think that living on less than two dollars a day is the indicator for living in poverty. It is believed that one billion people live on less than one dollar a day and that three billion people live off of less than two dollars a day (Seabrook, 2007, p.47). Regardless of the amount that is considered to be living in poverty most organizations have this perspective that poverty is about