Poverty & Inequality

Refers to lacking enough resources to provide the necessities of life. Such as = food, clean water, shelter and clothing. But in today's world, that can be extended to include access to health care, education and even transportation.

Inequality

Is the state of not being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities. Inequality can occur in different ways such as income, wealth, education, health, and nutrition.

How is poverty and inequality related?

Poverty is related to, yet distinct from inequality.

Inequality is concerned with the full distribution of wellbeing. Poverty is focused on the lower end of the distribution only, those who fall below a poverty line.

What are the types of poverty?

Situational poverty

Is generally caused by a sudden crisis or loss and is often temporary. Events causing situational poverty include environmental disasters, divorce, or severe health problems.

Generational poverty

Occurs in families where at least two generations have been born into poverty. Families living in this type of poverty are not equipped with the tools to move out of their situations.

Absolute poverty

Which is rare in the United States, involves a scarcity of such necessities as shelter, running water, and food. Families who live in absolute poverty tend to focus on day-to-day survival.

Relative poverty

Refers to the economic status of a family whose income is insufficient to meet its society's average standard of living.

Urban poverty

Occurs in metropolitan areas with populations of at least 50,000 people. The urban poor deal with a complex aggregate of chronic and acute stressors (including crowding, violence, and noise) and are dependent on often-inadequate large-city services.

Rural poverty

Occurs in nonmetropolitan areas with populations below 50,000. In rural areas, there are more single-guardian households, and families often have less access to services, support for disabilities, quality education opportunities, and job opportunities are few .

What are the types of inequality?

In 2007 the JRF asked the British public for their views on what constituted a 'social evil'. In this Viewpoint, Ferdinand Mount explores one aspect raised by many respondents - the problems created by an unequal society. And here are the 5 types of inequality.

Political inequality

Includes civic inequality and inequality before the law.

Inequality of outcome or result

By which we mean primarily inequality of income and wealth.

Inequality of opportunity

These days often called as the 'inequality of access' or 'life chances'.

Inequality of treatment

Which can be taken to include or at least help to generate equality of agency and responsibility.

Inequality of membership in society

Is the numbers of member in a family, nation, or faith.

What causes poverty?

Inequality and marginalization
Hunger, malnutrition, and stunting
Poor healthcare systems
Climate change
Lack of education
Poor public works and infrastructure
Lack of jobs or livelihoods
Lack of government support

What causes inequality?

Global influences
National economy
Tax and policy
Globalization
Changing and breaking the rules
Decline of organized labor
Technologies

Why is inequality the main cause of persistent poverty?

In the roughly three decades leading up to the most recent recession, looking at the officially measured poverty rate, educational upgrading and overall income growth were the two biggest poverty-reducing factors, while income inequality was the largest poverty-increasing factor. Relative to these factors, the racial composition of the U.S. population over this period (the growth of nonwhite populations with higher likelihoods of poverty) and changes in family structure (the growth of single mother households) have contributed much less to poverty, particularly in recent years.

Graph

The figure above plots the impact of these economic and demographic factors on the official poverty rate from 1979 to 2007. The impact of income inequality and income growth were quantitatively large, but in the opposite directions. Had income growth been equally distributed, which in this analysis means that all families’ incomes would have grown at the pace of the average, the poverty rate would have been 5.5 points lower, essentially, 44 percent lower than what it was.

This rise in inequality, in turn, has been dominated by inequality of pre-tax, pre-transfer, market incomes. This means that making real progress on pushing the poverty rate down going forward would be helped enormously by checking or even reversing this growth in market income inequality. In concrete terms, this means we need wages to go up for those at the bottom and middle of the income distribution.

Effects of poverty and inequality

Poverty

Poverty involves a complex array of risk factors that adversely affect the population in a multitude of ways. The four primary risk factors afflicting families living in poverty are