Being poor can mean choosing between sick or cold or hungry. Being poor can mean hearing children cry themselves to sleep. Being poor can mean homelessness and joblessness and helplessness. Being poor is multi-cultural. Being poor is global. Being poor is personal.

If you ask someone at the World Bank what poor means, you may be quizzed on what kind of poor, and where and when. The World Bank is host to hundreds of analyses of the many types of poverty. Policy analysts break down the poor into "poverty groups" with "poverty profiles" that demonstrate particular "patterns of poverty". Poverty groups are also tracked to find out how they benefit from the organization's poverty reduction programs. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have created and funded dozens of programs geared toward treating issues related to poverty such as the Poverty and Growth Program, which focuses on helping poor and middle-income countries design strategies for reducing poverty. Moreover, the World Bank's International Development Association provides interest-free credits and grants for programs aimed at boosting economic growth and improving living conditions for the poor. However, after much categorizing and dissecting of data, the World Bank analysts agree that the best people to ask about what being poor means are the poor themselves.

Global Poverty

Poverty researchers from the World Bank interviewed 60,000 poor women and men across the globe prior to 2002 for the expansive project "Voices of the Poor". The project is a collection of real-time testimonies of what it's like to be poor in towns, villages, rural areas and households all over the world. A farmer in northern Ghana described poor as "empty pocket", which is a local term meaning "a person who has nothing but the body God gave him, is unable to feed his family most of the year, and cannot send his children to school".¹ For a 35-year-old single mother of two teenagers in Jugen, Bulgaria, poor means having to compete for full-time work with young people who will do the job for less because they still live at home with their parents and don't have children to feed. In other words, she competes with her own children for work. ²

Policy analysts break down the poor into "poverty groups" with "poverty profiles" that demonstrate particular "patterns of poverty". However, after much categorizing and dissecting of data, the World Bank analysts agree that the best people to ask about what being poor means are the poor themselves.

The "Voices of the Poor" project also provides a definitional overview of what poverty means in different places around the world. The poor of the village of Peda Kothapalli in India, for example, are considered to be those who own less than an acre of land and work as migrant wage laborers that periodically go hungry and are in constant debt. According to the study, poverty in Ethiopia is "living from hour to hour"; in Jamaica it is "living in bondage waiting to be free"; in Cambodia poverty is "working for more than 18 hours a day but still not having enough to feed yourself."¹

Poverty in the United States

Some of the above descriptions of "poor" are analogous to what Americans might think of when they hear about the "third world". Yet there is real poverty within the United States although it may look a little different from poverty in less developed countries. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina revealed poverty in the southern United States like no other situation in the recent past, showing the world what being poor looks and feels like in America. Suddenly, people everywhere wanted to help house and clothe those who were affected. The government and aid agencies filled gymnasiums with beds, American families opened their homes to the displaced, and relief centers received donations of food and clothing for the victims.

The irony of the aid efforts after Hurricane Katrina is that this sort of relief effort is needed every day in the United States, not just after a major natural disaster draws the nation's attention. Regardless of the weather, there are millions of poor Americans, millions of homeless and jobless. It seems that Americans do not react as quickly to problems in their own communities as they do to situations displayed on their TV screens. This has the unfortunate outcome of people hearing the news in a way that is often biased towards negative stereotypes of the poor. Media-saturated Americans seem to react to quantity of press coverage, as well as how exciting it is. If they experience a media captivating natural disaster, their support is swift. If they see people sleeping in the alleys and trash bins behind their homes, these people are invisible or a nuisance.

Some conservative political analysts in the United States claim that the news media has hyped the poverty statistics in the U.S. in order to garner more money for social programs. For example, according to the The Heritage Foundation, a Washington DC based think tank that promotes conservative public policies, America's poor are not so bad off. According to a foundation report titled "Understanding Poverty in America", the 2003 U.S. Census shows that those classified under the banner of "poor" in America include owners of large homes, SUVs, televisions, microwave ovens, and air conditioners. Their children eat more meat than rich children and are, in fact, taller and "supernourished," according to the report. The foundation claims that the really poor people - the "destitute" - are "only a small number of the 35 million persons classified as poor" in the 2002 U.S. Census.³

What these and other poverty statistics sometimes leave out is that the 35 million poor in America includes the "working poor", people are not jobless but are often said to be one medical bill away from homelessness.

From the tone of the Heritage Foundation's position paper, most poor Americans are actually living it up, running their household appliances into the night and gorging on second helpings of meat. However, when CNNMoney studied the statistics for the same year of the U.S. Census, its view of America's poor was not so optimistic. CNNMoney showed that the percentage of U.S. citizens living in poverty rose from 12.1 percent to 12.5 percent and that the rate among children jumped to its highest level in 10 years. CNNMoney also reported that the poverty rate of "African Americans remained nearly twice the national rate, with 24.4 percent of blacks living below the poverty line in 2003, slightly higher than 24.1 percent a year earlier." They also reported that the median income for Hispanic Americans declined, and women's earnings declined for the first time since 1995. All in all, the CNNMoney report painted a bleak picture of what it means to be poor in America.⁴

There is a need for heightened awareness about poverty: local, national and global. World Bank surveys and natural disasters sometimes expose poverty, but there is a need for it to remain exposed and on our minds.

What these and other poverty statistics sometimes leave out is that the 35 million poor in America includes the "working poor", people are not jobless but are often said to be one medical bill away from homelessness. The "poor" in the United States are also illegal immigrants who perform labor that even many poor Americans will not do. Perhaps it is true that there are fewer poor in the "destitute" category in the United States. If this is true, it justifies the investment in social programs that provide a social safety net and keep people from destitution. Not all countries have the ability to invest in these social programs.

There is a need for heightened awareness about poverty: local, national and global. World Bank surveys and natural disasters sometimes expose poverty, but there is a need for it to remain exposed and on our minds. Roughly a sixth of the planet's population lives in extreme poverty, which is defined as surviving on less than $1 per day. In more developed countries, less than $10/day may yield equally stark realities. We should all consider what poor means, and what we can do about it. Millions of people die every year because of what Bono calls "stupid" poverty -- children dying of malaria because they don't have mosquito nets that cost less than a dollar or dying of preventable diseases because they don't have vaccines that cost just pennies to administer. Grinding poverty, regardless of which definition you use or whether it is in New Orleans or Banda Aceh, should be an affront to our common morality.



References

¹Narayan, Deepa and Patti Petesch. 2002. Voices of the Poor: From Many Lands. New York, N.Y: Published for the World Bank, Oxford University Press.

²Snel, Mathilde. 2005. "What Does it Mean to be Poor?" Power to the Poor. http://garibkaraj.hollandindia.nl. Retrieved 03/20/2006 from http://garibkaraj.hollandindia.nl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view &id=20&Itemid=1.

³Rector, Robert. E. and Johnson, Kirk A., Ph.D. "Understanding Poverty in America." Backgrounder #1713. The Heritage Foundation: Policy & Analysis. January 5th, 2004. Retrieved 03/14/2006 from http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm.

⁴CNNMoney (2004). "Poverty spreads." CNNMoney, Aug. 26, 2004. Retrieved 03/31/2006 from http://money.cnn.com/2004/08/26/news/economy/poverty_survey/.






Contributed by Terri Kelly, a writer and adjunct instructor at ITT Technical Institute in Portland, Oregon, USA.

To read a Global Envision article about measuring poverty, see Putting Poverty on the Map.



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