Absolute Poverty Free Essays

POVERTY What is poverty? Poverty is the economic condition in which people lack sufficient income to obtain certain minimal levels of health services, food, housing, clothing, and education generally recognized as necessary to ensure an adequate standard of living. What is considered adequate, however, depends on the average standard of living in a particular society. Relative poverty is that experienced by those whose income falls considerably below the average for their particular society. We will write a custom essay sample on Absolute Poverty or any similar topic only for you Order Now Absolute poverty is that experienced by those who do not have enough food to remain healthy. However, estimating poverty on an income basis may not measure essential elements that also contribute to a healthy life. People without access to education or health services should be considered poor even if they have adequate food. CAUSES OF POVERTY One of the greatest challenges facing many least developed countries especially in the African continent is the worsening scourge of poverty with its attendant effects of unemployment, malnutrition, illiteracy, HIV/AIDS and destitution. There are many causes of poverty complex and multi-dimensional in nature. They involve among many others gender inequality, economical, political and social exclusion. Therefore any intervention measures designed to respond to the challenges above should be judged by their ability to positively make a significant dent on poverty at a micro level (lower levels of society such as the households or individual levels). There should be a clear linkage between macro level policies and micro level impacts in terms of reducing poverty or at least providing an environment for poverty reduction. Such a policy should be able to facilitate the delivery of basic needs to ordinary citizens and these include access to affordable food, health, education, shelter, water and sanitation, public information among many others. No one should be alienated from these basic and fundamental human rights on account of one’s poor economic status. IMPACT OF POVERTY ON BUSINESS OPERATIONS When a person doesn’t have disposable income he/she make purchases of commodities, goods and services. Therefore many cannot increase their sales. Production output drops. Some companies put their staff on short time. This further reduces disposable income. Financial sectors do not grant credit to low- income earners therefore the financial market suffers. Inflation rises. The GDP of the country drops. The price of goods and services increase. The people with low income and those that receive social grants do not have enough many to but commodities. Companies that do not make high turnovers cannot plough moneys back into communities for social upliftment. ALLEVIATION OF POVERTY BY THE GOVERNMENT Aid refers to the net flow of official development assistance provide by governments, international agencies, and public institutions of the industrialized countries. The term is also used to encompass help (both material and technical) provided by non- governmental organizations (NGOs) and voluntary agencies to countries and people in need, particularly for disaster or emergency relief. The overall portfolio of assistance of a donor, or the range of aid I provides to a particular country, is often referred to as its aid programme. The various recognized categories of aid such as: Bilateral aid * Project aid * Grant aid * Technical assistance * Emergency aid/Disaster relief * Food aid * Voluntary aid GLOBAL POVERTY! IS BUSINESS THE ANSWER? When activists discuss the way less developed countries have missed out on the benefits of globalization, Multinational Corporations are often portrayed as the villains. But to some, they are the solution and the only one. CONCLUTION In conclusion I would just like to say that we, as South Africans, need to show the world that we are strong and we are better prepared for global turmoil than we previously were. WE ARE HERE TO STAY!! How to cite Absolute Poverty, Papers Absolute Poverty Free Essays Absolute poverty is a level of poverty defined in terms of the minimal requirements necessary to afford minimal standards of food, clothing, health care and shelter. For the measure to be absolute, the line must be the same in different countries, cultures, and technological levels. Such an absolute measure should look only at the individual’s power to consume and it should be independent of any changes in income distribution. We will write a custom essay sample on Absolute Poverty or any similar topic only for you Order Now The intuition behind an absolute measure is that mere survival takes essentially the same amount of resources across the world and that everybody should be subject to the same standards if meaningful comparisons of policies and progress are to be made. Notice that if everyone’s real income in an economy increases, and the income distribution does not change, absolute poverty will decline. Measuring poverty by an absolute threshold has the advantage of applying the same standard across different locations and time periods, it makes comparisons easier. On the other hand, it suffers from the disadvantage that any absolute poverty threshold is to some extent arbitrary; the amount of wealth required for survival is not the same in all places and time periods. For example, a person living in far northern Scandinavia requires a source of heat during colder months, while a person living on a tropical island does not. This type of measure is often contrasted with measures of relative poverty, which classify individuals or families as â€Å"poor† not by comparing them to a fixed cutoff point, but by comparing them to others in the population under study. The term absolute poverty is also sometimes used as a synonym for extreme poverty. The poverty threshold is the minimum level of income considered satisfactory in a given country. The common perceptive of the poverty line is considerably higher in developed countries than in developing countries. In the past, the common international poverty line has been roughly $1 a day. In 2008, the World Bank came out with a revised figure of $1. 25 at 2005 purchasing-power parity. Determining the poverty line is typically done by finding the total cost of all essential resources that an average human adult consumes in one year. Apartment rent is the largest expense that is required to live, so economists have paid particular attention to the real estate market and housing prices as a strong poverty line factor. Whether one is a parent, elderly, a child, married, etc. are used to account for different circumstances. The poverty threshold may be adjusted each year. National estimates are based on population weighted subgroup estimates from household surveys. Definitions of the poverty line may vary considerably among nations. For example, rich nations generally employ more generous standards of poverty than poor nations. In 2010, in the United States, the poverty threshold for one person under 65 was $11,344 the threshold for a family group of four, including two children, was $22,133. According to the U. S. Census Bureau data released on September 13, 2011, the nation’s poverty rate rose to 15. 1 percent in 2010. In the UK, â€Å"more than five million people – over a fifth of all employees – were paid less than ? . 67 an hour in April 2006. This is based on a low pay rate of 60 percent of full-time median earnings, equivalent to a little over ? 12,000 a year for a 35-hour working week. In April 2006, a 35-hour week would have earned someone ? 9,191 a year – before tax or National Insurance†. India’s official poverty level, on the other hand, is split according to rural vs. urban thresholds. For urban dwellers, the poverty line is defined as living on less than 538. 60 rupees per month, whereas for rural dwellers, it is defined as living on less than 356. 5 rupees per month. Using a poverty threshold is difficult because having an income marginally above it is not very different from having an income marginally below it. The negative effects of poverty tend to be continuous rather than discrete, and the same low income affects different people in different ways. To overcome this problem, poverty indices are sometimes used instead. A poverty threshold relies on a quantitative, or numbers based, measure of income. If other human development indicators like health and education are used, they must be quantified. In-kind gifts, whether from public or private sources, are not counted when calculating a poverty threshold. For example, if a parent pays the rent on an apartment for an adult child directly to the apartment owner, instead of giving the money to the child to pay the rent, then that money does not count as income to the child. If a church or non-profit organization gives food to an elderly person, the value of the food is not counted as income to the elderly person. The official poverty measure counts only monetary income. It considers antipoverty programs such as food stamps, housing assistance, the Earned Income Tax Credit, Medicaid and school lunches, among others, not income. So, despite everything these programs do to relieve poverty, they aren’t counted as income when the poverty rate is measured. Studies measuring the difference between income before and after taxes and government transfers have found that without these programs poverty would be roughly 30% to 40% higher than the official poverty line indicates, despite many of their benefits not being counted as income. How to cite Absolute Poverty, Essay examples