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Donald Ian Rankin

(13,598 posts)
Fri Jan 23, 2015, 02:03 PM Jan 2015

Is the usual definition of poverty as mad as it looks?


When people talk about "Poverty" in a technical sense, they are usually talking about having less than a certain fraction of the median income.

That looks utterly insane to me - it means that it's entirely possible for everyone in a country to become better off, and poverty still to increase.

I would have thought that the sane definition would be in terms of a multiple of the cost of living, not of the median income. The two are obviously going to be correlated, but I would be very surprised if there was a constant ratio.

Is there a justification for this that I'm missing? Or is it as mad as it looks?
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Is the usual definition of poverty as mad as it looks? (Original Post) Donald Ian Rankin Jan 2015 OP
usual to who? the government doesn't define poverty in terms of the median income. thus ND-Dem Jan 2015 #1
Poverty Definitions dumbcat Jan 2015 #2
 

ND-Dem

(4,571 posts)
1. usual to who? the government doesn't define poverty in terms of the median income. thus
Fri Jan 23, 2015, 02:05 PM
Jan 2015

no anti-poverty program does either.

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