measuring poverty
I was told an interesting story the other day. A relative was outside their property and saw a cardboard collector on the street. This is in Argentina, where many people collect and sell cardboard by going through household rubbish, to make a living.
It was a hot day and the man looked tired. My relative asked the man if he would like a drink and something to eat, and on receiving a positive response went into the house and prepared a sandwich and cold drink. As the cardboard collector tucked into the free food, his mobile phone started to ring.
I’ll stop the story there. I heard the story third hand, but the basic response was one of shock, that someone who could afford a mobile phone would accept free food.
The situation made me think about poverty and judgement. From my point of view, someone who spends their days walking the streets, sifting through other people’s household rubbish to make not much money from cardboard, is living in poverty. Mobile phones are cheap, almost disposable, and can be used with little or no credit – they are not the status symbol of ten years ago, anywhere in the world, are they?
There is an attitude that people must look like [this] in order to ‘qualify’ for any kind of assistance. As individuals, we tend to judge when someone looks poor enough to deserve a sandwich, or anything else, and when they are simply being irresponsible with money. We measure poverty in others at a glance and judge their choices.
But how is poverty really measured?
In Europe, it’s relative to other citizens within your country.
Within the EU, relative poverty is measured by using relative-income poverty lines. This involves working out average or median equalized household incomes in a country. (EAPN)
In the USA, it’s based on the price of food.
The U.S. Census Bureau determines poverty status by comparing pre-tax cash income against a threshold that is set at three times the cost of a minimum food diet in 1963, updated annually for inflation using the Consumer Price Index, and adjusted for family size, composition, and age of householder. (IRP)
Every country has a different way of measure poverty, but there is an international poverty line, which has been set by the World Bank at $1.90 per day. So if you’re on $2 a day, you can breathe a sigh of relief.
It turns out that inequality is more detrimental to humans than poverty as such. Still on my phone, so no links, but look up Gini Index which measures inequality. Then Google inequality and health.
The correlation between economic inequality and all kinds of ills is staggering, though it does not surprise. It should inform our policies (if we believed that the government has a role to play in creating healthier, happier society for human beings).
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Here is the Gini Index:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient
Here is data on the individual and social effects of economic inequality:
http://inequality.org/inequality-health/#sthash.H2XKIlFb.dpuf
Here are aspects of human life most influenced by economic inequality:
Life expectancy
Education
Infant mortality
Homicides
Imprisonment
Teenage births
Social trust and cohesion
Physical health / obesity
Mental illness, including drug and alcohol addiction
Social mobility
Not surprisingly, the US, which has the highest economic inequality among the First World nations, and which has only rudimentary social services (while it shamefully lacks in others, ending behind Third World nations as wrt universal maternity/parental leave, for example), leads in these social ills, among First World nations.
Also unsurprisingly, the socialisticky-ish nations of Northern Europe — which are full of those evil feminazis, lazybum commies, and other peacenik-ish menaces of uber-capitalism who have enacted policies minimizing economic inequality — have had the happiest, healthiest, best educated populations for decades now.
Incidentally (or not at all), here are some shocking (or not at all) recent findings on rapidly declining health, physical and mental, of the American white middle class:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/why-is-the-death-rate-rising-among-middle-aged-white-americans
Those findings are accompanied by equally shocking (or maybe not) statistics about the rapid rise in crime rates among the American middle-aged (!) whites:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ten-miles-square/2016/03/the_crime_reality_everyone_is059905.php
It does not take a social scientist to make a connection between rising economic inequality and declining health, rising mortality, and an increase in crime rates in a population not known for its criminality (crime is a young [male] person’s domain, statistically speaking). But, just in case, you’ve read it here first. 😉 (The authors of that study curiously shy away from making the connection.)
And it does not take much to understand how this deepening misery and discontent, driven by growing inequality rather than “absolute” poverty as such, gives rise to a populist movement that elects Herr Drumpf as its (false and manipulative) champion.
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It’s difficult to balance what inequality means in rich countries along with what absolute poverty means for anyone, so thanks for all the links and further information.
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Poverty is another one of those issues that the tyrant and liberal, elitist do-gooder use to beat themselves into the wallets and lives of the common man.
Because of the nature of money, the only way to eliminate or at least reduce the so called wealth gap is to eliminate or at least reduce wealth.
Unfortunately, neither the tyrant nor the liberal, elitist do-gooder has any interest in learning how the nature of money and the creation of wealth in the free market can be used to eliminate material poverty for every man, woman and child on the planet.
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Which explains why NZ, which has one of the highest, if not the highest level of economic freedom in the OECD has one of the highest, if not the highest rates of growing disparity between rich and poor? We haven’t yet reached the level of disparity achieved in the US, but the economic theories that claims wealth generation will cause some of it to trickle down to the poor has in reality resulted in a trickle up process: the wealthy get richer at the expense of the poorer.
One of the most significant factors of social malaise is not lack of wealth itself, but the disparity between rich and poor. Over recent decades as the nation gets richer and the number below the poverty line increases, NZ is seeing the arrival of third world diseases, family violence, hungry children, substandard housing, and other social problems at unprecedented levels. Perhaps you might consider such social ills as being worthy outcomes of wealth, but not I. Give me the egalitarianism I used to know.
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Barry,
The nature of money is such that when you put it to work, it grows. And money grows at an exponential rate.
Poverty is static by comparison.
Consequently, in a free market economy where anyone can become wealthy, the gap between the wealthy middle class and the poor cannot do anything but grow.
The only way to reduce the “wealth gap” is to impoverish everyone.
And that is exactly what socialism does and why it is a crime against humanity.
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Socialism is not a barrier to a free market economy, nor is it a barrier to other freedoms. I live in a nation that is less regulated than the US, has greater levels of personal freedom and until a few decades ago when the welfare system was partially dismantled, a per capita income that matched and at times surpassed the US. We were a classless society where all families could feed, clothe and house their children. Rich and poor were neighbours and almost everyone was “middle class”.
We now have the fastest growing disparity between rich and poor in the OECD. The only significant changes in our society has been the dismantling of our “socialist” system. Net wealth continues to rise as before, but it is going into fewer and fewer hands. We now have a shrinking middle class that is getting proportionally less of the national cake, and a new and rapidly growing class of working poor that despite their best efforts are unable to adequately provide for their children. At the same time we have a small but slowly growing wealthy sector that is taking an ever increasing share of the nation’s wealth.
Under “socialism” we were amongst the best of nations having low infant mortality, high life expectancy, high home ownership, very high business ownership, very high standards of health and education, and very importantly, high levels of upward social mobility.
For those who are unaware, social mobility, measures how easily one can move from one social/economic group to another. A score of “0” means no-one can escape the social/economic group they were born into. A “1” on the other hand would mean that everyone moves to a different social/economic group from the one into which they were born. The US, has the lowest score in the OECD, and despite popular myth, it is more difficult to change one’s circumstances there than elsewhere. NZ used to have a high score, particularly in upward movement, but we’re heading steadily downward as the “powers that be” try to emulate the US.
So, SoM, the circumstances I grew up in were a crime against humanity? Really? Who suffered? What was I deprived of? Freedom of thought? Business/economic freedom? Religious freedom? Freedom of assembly? Freedom from persecution? Freedom from hunger? Adequate housing? Good health care? Good education? Low crime rate? Even the lowest decile were not deprived of these.
Today 20% of the children in this country live below the poverty line, frequently or usually go to school on an empty stomach, have inadequate clothing, live in substandard housing and have poor health and education outcomes. We now have walled communities for the rich, and suburbs, while not yet ghettos, are heading towards that state of affairs The poor are disproportionally represented in the crime statistics, both as perpetrators and as victims. And this situation is somehow better than socialism? Better for who?
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I didn’t know that was happening in NZ. Is there a backlash against immigrants? I see one immigrant to NZ doing horrible posts about *other* immigrants.
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Not that I’m aware of. One in five New Zealanders are immigrants (including the wife and a daughter-in-law), and we’re a fairly liberal and tolerant society. However there’s always a very small but vocal minority that suffers from bigotry. I would like to think that it only applies to the occasional disgruntled immigrant, but that’s wishful thinking. What does worry me is that as the disparity between rich and poor increases, poorer sections of society will look for scapegoats. Immigrants would be easy targets.
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“Poverty is another one of those issues that the tyrant and liberal, elitist do-gooder use to beat themselves into the wallets and lives of the common man.”
Are you referring to your man-god Jesus?
“Unfortunately, neither the tyrant nor the liberal, elitist do-gooder has any interest in learning how the nature of money and the creation of wealth in the free market can be used to eliminate material poverty for every man, woman and child on the planet.”
Is that the core message of the New Testament? I must have missed that page. 😉
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“Improvident personal choices create poverty!” “No, it’s ‘the system’!” There’s some truth in both perspectives. The solution? Give it time. Eventually, earth’s human population will be reduced to a sustainable level (500,000,000 -1,000,000,000, give or take), genetic engineering will improve the human genome, and fusion power will provide limitless, clean energy. Artificially intelligent machines will do the grunt work. The coming man will look back on us, horrified. I was born at the wrong time.
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Eventually? I’ve got a post mulling about the exponential growth in technology that is allegedly on the horizon. Apparently we’ll all be part machine in the next 40 years – maybe you were born at just the right time!
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Perhaps I should be precisely where and when I am. I sounds like mature, evolved thinking. I’ll give it a try.
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IT sounds like mature, evolved thinking. Now, if only I could stop obsessing on trivial mistakes.
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I thought it was a deliberate ‘error’. I am but I amn’t.
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I am a freeloader. You may have seen I cadged a bicycle; earlier this month I was given a spin dryer, as my friend had one spare (!) People like being generous, and I offer them the opportunity. Us relatively poor people have to make our own choices. I was sick fed up of being cold, so have had my heating on early today. No answers here, just experience: some will be generous, some will disapprove, as it always was.
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There’s a lot of stuff floating about in our society these days, it’s good that someone is always willing to take it. We’ve got a lot of furniture off the street. Got a coffee maker out of the communal bin a few weeks ago. I don’t understand why people don’t put their unwanted items in charity shops. It’s good you have a network that cuts out the middleperson (be that the street or the charity shop) or just it’s good you know nice people.
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Nowadays a cell phone is a necessity and a tool of survival – not a luxury.
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Indeed. People get out of touch. Some in older generations who don’t have one themselves still regard it as a luxury item.
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http://homelesshub.ca/blog/how-can-homeless-people-afford-cell-phones
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If the poverty line is set at $2 a day, then I must be incredibly rich. That’s an eye opener. It looks like that idea needs fixed.
Our seniors in this country are considered to be living at poverty level on so much more of an income and we at least have a roof over our heads and food to eat….
Thanks for the article…..
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