Poverty

Poverty is a universal problem known to human beings since time immemorial. The concept of poverty has been defined in different ways ranging from the social structural to a social psychological level. For example, Lewis developed the notion of the culture of poverty, implying that the poor people have a distinct way of life plagued by inadequate access to quality as well as quantity of resources. In either case, there seems to be a tendency to blame the victims of poverty as if they voluntarily chose to be deprived of life's amenities. Marx, on the other hand, blamed the structure of society for creating inequities for and exploitation of the have-nots by those in power and control.

Overall, a universal definition of poverty may neither be meaningful nor always useful. For example, the average income of African Americans and Mexican Americans in U.S. dollars may be several times higher than that of slum dwellers of Cairo, Dhaka, Calcutta, or Saigon. That, however, does not mean that poverty-stricken families of color in the United States experience any less deprivation than those others. Although international comparisons of poverty are important, the problem should basically look at relatively localized perceptions and impact.

The term poverty is used here in a demographic or economic sense. The U.S. government, for example, determines a poverty line or threshold for a given year based on a low economic status of a person and/or family in terms of annual income, including earnings, unemployment or workers' compensation, Social Security, Supplementary Security Income, public assistance, veterans' payments, survivor benefits, pension or retirement income, interest, dividends, rents, royalties, income from estates, trusts, educational assistance, alimony, child support, assistance from outside the household, and other miscellaneous sources. Consideration is given in poverty threshold calculations to the size of the family and ages of its members.