Partnering for Poverty Relief

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Recommended: Poverty in the developing world

Partnering for Relief:
Poverty is a persisting, global issue. It not only affects people in developing or “poor” countries, but can also be found in developed nations such as the US. Although it is true that poverty in the US is different from poverty experienced by people in (i.e.) the Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, or Guinea, experiences of hunger and despair may be shared. With this in mind, the issue of poverty may be one of definition. Actually, what is poverty? Is it the state of being extremely poor, of living on less than $2.50 a day? Of not having adequate access to clean drinking water or electricity; suffering from malnutrition and hunger; lacking access to adequate healthcare and/or vaccinations; and the absence of basic education (DoSomething, 2014)? Of course, it is. But is poverty really limited by these factors and thus somehow only found in developing nations and emerging economies. In other words, what about relative definitions and standards of living? What about people in developed countries, such as the US and Europe, who earn more than $2.50 a day and still cannot afford a living, food, and basic necessities?
An article from the Economist (2011) notes that despite a general “sense of what it means to be poor, poverty means different things in different countries.” For instance, in much of Europe, public policy considers those with earnings below 60% of the median income to be poor (Staff, 2011). By contrast, discussions concerning poverty at the World Bank, IMF, and UN mainly focus on developing countries, defining poverty as the distance of individuals’ earnings from the “poverty line of $1.25 per day” (Olinto et al., 2013). In the US, there are 48 possible poverty thresholds varying in accordance with size...

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...ords, it will take cooperative efforts between private, public, and voluntary organizations to confront and alleviate poverty in the US.

References:
Do Something. (2014). 11 facts about global poverty. Retrieved from http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-global-poverty
Olinto, P., Beegle, K., Sobrado, C., & Uematsu, H. (2013). The state of the poor. The World Bank. Retrieved from http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTPREMNET/Resources/EP125.pdf
Rank, M. (2013). Poverty in America is mainstream. NY Times. Retrieved from http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/02/poverty-in-america-is-mainstream/
Staff. (2011). Measure by measure. The Economist. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/node/17961878
US Census. (2014). How the Census Bureau measures poverty. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/measure.html

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