Poverty

Poverty is the struggle for survival without anything. It means you have no access to clean water or medical help, no food, no shelter, no education, no job, no power and no hope. National poverty is when a whole country does not have enough of the resources needed for human survival, and is often defined by region, age or social group.

Absolute poverty measures the number of people living below certain income threshold or the number of households unable to afford certain basic goods and services.

Relative poverty measures the extent to which a household’s financial resources falls below an average income threshold for the economy. Although living standards and real incomes have grown because of higher employment and sustained economic growth over recent years, the gains in income and wealth have been unevenly distributed across the population.