Understanding poverty

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The lack of the resources and capabilities needed for a minimally decent life — not just low income, but deprivation across health, education and services too.

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Lacking the basics needed to survive — food, clean water, shelter and minimum health — measured against a fixed international poverty line.

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Falling far below the normal standard of living in your own society, so you cannot participate normally — judged against your society's average.

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The reference point: absolute is judged against a fixed survival threshold; relative is judged against your own society's standard, so it rises with the average.

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Deprivation across several areas at once — income, health, education and access to services — not only low income.

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An income threshold — e.g. living on under a set amount a day — below which a person is counted as poor.

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A measure that counts overlapping deprivations in health, education and living standards, revealing people whom income-only measures miss.

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Because two households on the same income can have very different access to water, schooling and health care, so income hides the deprivations that shape a life.

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Because where you set the line, and whether you measure income or many dimensions, decides who counts as poor, who gets help, and how much progress is claimed.

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Because growth can lift people above a fixed survival line while they still fall far below their society's rising average standard of living.

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No single measure suffices — an absolute line protects the survival floor, a relative measure captures exclusion, and a multidimensional index reveals hidden deprivation.