Scribd
Upload
400 views2 pages

The State of Being Poor Lack

Poverty refers to the condition of lacking the basic human needs such as food, shelter, water and access to education and healthcare. It is generally defined as either an absolute or relative lack of economic resources. Historically, poverty has been the norm for most of humanity, but economic growth through industrialization, agricultural improvements, and access to financial services and property rights has helped reduce poverty in many places. However, poverty persists and takes many forms across the world, affecting both individuals and groups in both developing and developed nations. Causes, effects and definitions of poverty inform policies and programs aimed at reducing poverty.

Uploaded by

pianoNdark
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
400 views2 pages

The State of Being Poor Lack

Poverty refers to the condition of lacking the basic human needs such as food, shelter, water and access to education and healthcare. It is generally defined as either an absolute or relative lack of economic resources. Historically, poverty has been the norm for most of humanity, but economic growth through industrialization, agricultural improvements, and access to financial services and property rights has helped reduce poverty in many places. However, poverty persists and takes many forms across the world, affecting both individuals and groups in both developing and developed nations. Causes, effects and definitions of poverty inform policies and programs aimed at reducing poverty.

Uploaded by

pianoNdark
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

Poverty

1. The state of being poor; lack of the means of providing material needs or
comforts.
2. Deficiency in amount; scantiness: "the poverty of feeling that reduced her
soul" (Scott Turow).
3. Unproductiveness; infertility: the poverty of the soil.
4. Renunciation made by a member of a religious order of the right to own
property.
Poverty refers to the condition of not having the means to afford basic human
needs such asclean water, nutrition, health care, clothing and shelter.[1][2] This is also
referred to as absolute poverty or destitution. Relative poverty is the condition of
having fewer resources or less income than others within a society or country, or
compared to worldwide averages.

Before the industrial revolution, poverty had mostly been the norm.[3][4] Poverty
reduction has historically been a result of economic growth as increased levels of
production, such as modern industrial technology, made more wealth available for
those who were otherwise too poor to afford them.[4][5] Also, investments in
modernizing agriculture and increasing yields is considered the core of
the antipoverty effort, given three-quarters of the world's poor are rural farmers.[6]
[7]
Today, continued economic development is constrained by the lack of economic
freedoms. Economic liberalization includes extending property rights, especially
to land, to the poor, and makingfinancial services, notably savings, accessible.[8][9]
[10]
Inefficient institutions, corruption and political instability can also discourage
investment. Aid and government support in health,education and infrastructure helps
growth by increasing human and physical capital.[4]

Poverty is the condition of lacking full economic access to fundamental human needs
such as food, shelter and safe drinking water. While some define poverty primarily in
economic terms, others consider social and political arrangements to be intrinsic.
Causes, effects, and measurement of poverty directly influences the design and
implementation of poverty reduction programs, and is thus important to the fields of
international development and public administration. Although poverty is generally
considered to be undesirable, because of the pain and suffering that may accompany it,
in certain spiritual contexts, it may be seen as a virtue because voluntary poverty
involves the renunciation of material goods.
Poverty is a condition which may affect individuals or collective groups, and is not
confined to the developing nations. In some developed countries, examples
include homelessness and ghettos.

The book "The World Bank" by David Moore argues that some analyses of poverty
reflect pejorative and sometimes racialized stereotypes of impoverished people as
powerless victims, and passive recipients of aid programs.
Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to
see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read.
Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time. Poverty is
losing a child to illness brought about by unclean water. Poverty is powerlessness, lack
of representation and freedom.

Poverty is a call to action -- for the


poor and the wealthy alike -- a call
to change the world so that many
more may have enough to eat,
adequate shelter, access to
education and health, protection
from violence, and a voice in what
happens in their communities.
Poverty has many faces, changing from place to place and across time, and has been
described in many ways (for a collection of readings, see Poems and Personal Accounts
of Poverty). Most often, poverty is a situation people want to escape. So poverty is a call
to action -- for the poor and the wealthy alike -- a call to change the world so that many
more may have enough to eat, adequate shelter, access to education and health,
protection from violence, and a voice in what happens in their communities.
To know what helps to reduce poverty, what works and what does not, what changes
over time, poverty has to be defined, measured, and studied -- and even experienced.
As poverty has many dimensions, it has to be looked at through a variety of indicators --
levels of income and consumption, social indicators, and indicators of vulnerability to
risks and of socio/political access.
Much work has been done using consumption or income-based measures of poverty,
but also on non-income dimensions of poverty, most notably in the Human Development
Report prepared annually by the United Nations Development Programme. See New
Directions in Poverty Measurement below.

You might also like

pFad - Phonifier reborn

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


Alternative Proxies:

Alternative Proxy

pFad Proxy

pFad v3 Proxy

pFad v4 Proxy