Poverty is a state or condition in which a person or community lacks the financial resources and essentials for a minimum standard of living. Poverty means that the income level from employment is so low that basic human needs can’t be met.

A short rate of economic development: In India, the rate of economic development is very low what is required for a good level. Therefore, there persists a gap between the level of availability and requirements of goods and services. The net result is poverty.

In general terms, poverty is when the income available to an individual or household does not meet their needs. This then restricts their ability to participate in society. Poverty is usually defined as having less than 60% of median household income.

Poverty, the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. Poverty is said to exist when people lack the means to satisfy their basic needs.

We can define poverty as the condition where the basic needs of a family, like food, shelter, clothing, and education are not fulfilled. It can lead to other problems like poor literacy, unemployment, malnutrition, etc. A poor person is not able to get education due to lack of money and therefore remains unemployed.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines poverty as “the state of being poor; lack of the means of providing material needs or comforts.” “Poor” in turn is defined as “having insufficient wealth to meet the necessities or comforts of life or to live in a manner considered acceptable in a society …

about not having enough money

Billions of people around the world live in extreme poverty. Nearly 10 percent of the world’s population. That’s nearly 700 million people living below the World Bank poverty line of $1.90 per day. And almost half the world (nearly 4 billion people) lives with a household income below $2.50 a day.

In 2019, the poverty rate in the United States was highest among people between the ages of 18 and 24 years old, with a rate of 17.1 percent for male Americans and a rate of 21.35 percent for female Americans. The lowest poverty rate for both genders was found in individuals between the ages of 65 and 74 years old.

States, federal district, and territories

The true face of poverty, however, is found in rural areas of the South and Southwest regions of the U.S. where living conditions are even more run down and industry never really started up. Seven of the 10 states with the highest poverty rates in the U.S. are in the South.

People living on $1.90 per day are considered to live in extreme poverty. Money isn’t a complete measure of poverty. Approximately 297,000 children under five die every year from diarrhoeal diseases due to poor sanitation, poor hygiene, or unsafe drinking water.

Several authors have pointed out that poverty as an individual problem lowers people’s personal level of welfare and coping, and may cause frustration, depression and anxiety which are often accompanied by alcoholism, drug use and other addictive behaviour (e.g. Kutsar 2010).

Poverty entails more than the lack of income and productive resources to ensure sustainable livelihoods. Its manifestations include hunger and malnutrition, limited access to education and other basic services, social discrimination and exclusion as well as the lack of participation in decision-making.

Those who say that poverty is a choice, especially those who were once poor, are lucky to have had access to various opportunities that allowed them to move further up the social ladder. But it is not a choice, it is a product of the conditions formed and perpetuated by society.

A social fact consists of collective thoughts and shared expectations that influence individual actions. Examples of social facts include social roles, norms, laws, values, beliefs, rituals, and customs.

Social facts represent a category of facts with distinctive characteristics which are external to the individual endowed with the power of coercion by means of which they control him. The ways of thinking, acting and feeling which are external to individual, constraint in nature and general in character.