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For some, poverty is a subjective and comparative term; for others, it is moral and evaluative; and for others, scientifically established. The principal uses of the term include

• Descriptions of material need, including deprivation of essential goods and services, multiple deprivation, and patterns of deprivation over time.

• Economic circumstances, describing a lack of sufficient wealth (usually understood as capital, money, material goods, or resources especially natural resources). The meaning of "sufficient" varies widely across the different political and economic areas of the world. In the European Union, poverty is also described in terms of "economic distance", or inequality.

• Social relationships, including social exclusion, dependency, and the ability to live what is understood in a society as a "normal" life: for instance, to be capable of raising a healthy family, and especially educating children and participating in society.

• People who either choose poverty or renounce wealth out of choice.

A person living in the condition of poverty is said to be poor.

1 Defining poverty

Poverty may be seen as the collective condition of poor people, or of poor groups, and in this sense entire nation-states are sometimes regarded as poor. To avoid stigma these are usually called developing nations.

Poverty is often strongly correlated with social problems, such as crime and disease (notably sexually transmitted diseases), sometimes in epidemic form. As a result, many societies employ social workers to fight poverty by a variety of methods which range from moral persuasion to financial subsidyA subsidy is a grant or monetary gift given by a private person or entity (often a government) to another private person or entity, as financial assistance or to help launch an enterprise. Critics of government interventions in free markets often use a wi to physical coercion.

There is evidence of poverty in every region. In developed countries, this condition results in wandering homelessHomelessness is a situation in which a person does not have a permanent place of residence. This is distinguished from nomadic cultures where that condition is considered normal. There are a number of causes of homelessness. In areas with high unemploymen people and poor suburbs (with so-called bidonvilles or favelaFavela is a term used commonly in Brazil to describe Shanty Towns and slums (on a lesser degree). The favela is fundamentally different from inner-city slums and tenements (the type of poor people's housing prevalent in the developed world). However, dues) in which poor people are - more or less - restricted to a ghettoThe name ghetto refers to an area where people from a given ethnic background or united in a given culture or religion live as a group, voluntarily or involuntarily, in milder or stricter seclusion. The word historically referred to restricted housing zon.

The condition in itself is not always considered negatively, even if this is the prevalent interpretation: some cultural or religious groups consider poverty an ideal condition to live in, a condition necessary in order to reach certain spiritual or intellectual states. A notable example is that of the Christian Franciscan order. This is called voluntary simplicity, of which voluntary poverty is an extreme form.

Poverty is studied by many social, scientific and cultural disciplines.

• In economics, two kinds of poverty are considered: relative and absolute.

• In politics, the fight against poverty is usually regarded as a social goal and most governments have - secondarily at least - some dedicated institutions or departments. The work done by these bodies is mostly limited to census studies and identification of some income level below which a citizen is technically considered poor. Active interventions may include housing plans, social pensions, special job opportunities, or requirements. Some ideologies (such as Marxism) argue that the economists and politicians actively work to create poverty. Other theories consider poverty a sign of a failing economic system and one of the main causes of crime.

• In law, poverty is recognised, in most developed countries, as a mitigating factor for the determination of the punishment, being usually considered coincident with a generic and permanent state of need which can affect and alter the correct capability of clearly or freely identifying the legally and socially acceptable behaviour. Poverty is generally argued to cause increased crime rates amongst the poor by increasing their stress.

• In education, poverty affects a student's ability to effectively profit from the learning environments. Especially for younger students coming from poverty, their primary needs as described in Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs; the need for a safe and stable homes, clothes on their backs, and regular meals clouds a student's ability to learn. Furthermore, in education circles there is a term used to characterize the phenomenon of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer (as it relates to education but easily transfers to poverty in general) is the Matthew Effect.

Related debates on a states' human capital and a person's individual capital tend likewise to focus on access to the instructional capital and social capital available only to those educated in such formal systems.

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Topics: Poverty Poor People Social Economic Condition Capital Education...

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Poverty in the United StatesThere is significant disagreement on how much poverty there is in the United States, clashing particularly over how " poverty" ought to be defined. Using radically different definitions, two major groups of advocates have claimed variously (a) that the Un Poverty line in the United StatesIn the United States, official statistics on poverty and the official poverty line are kept by the US Census Bureau. Other federal and state agencies, however, use other definitions of poverty, for example, to do means testing for welfare programs. Histor PovertyPoverty describes a wide range of circumstances associated with need, hardship and lack of resources, as well as the decision by some—e. ascetics, monks, and nuns—to live simply. For some, poverty is a subjective and comparative term; for others, it is mo Poverty lineThe poverty line is the level of income below which one cannot afford to purchase all the resources one requires to live. People who have an income below the poverty line have no discretionary disposable income, by definition. The actual monetary value of Poverty pimpPoverty pimp is a derogatory label used to convey the accusation that an individual or group is benefiting unduly by acting as an intermediary on behalf of the poor. Those who use this appellation suggest that "poverty pimps" profit from the misfortune of Poverty PointPoverty Point is an archaeological site in northwestern Louisiana (near the town of Epps, Louisiana), overlooking the Mississippi River flood plain. It was constructed c. 1500 BCE by American Indians of the archaic Poverty Point Culture that inhabited the Poverty Bay