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Poverty is extremely relative. What you consider poor is someone else's rich. I was born in one of these countries with less than $5.5/day and not owning a car
by AdrianB1 7y ago
Poverty is extremely relative. What you consider poor is someone else's rich. I was born in one of these countries with less than $5.5/day and not owning a car was not considered a negative, nobody had one in the entire village, but nobody considered themselves poor.
Now we are considered wealthier than one of the countries in that chart (we are neighbors) and the government considers 45% of the population is poor. even if our "poor" neighbor is listed with just 16%. The conclusion: lying with statistics is a fact of life.
- projektfu 7y agoThe poverty rates in the article are consistent with what one might call abject poverty, as the chart lists the US having 2% poverty but our government considers about 12-13% to be currently under the poverty line. Ours is apparently calculated based on the cost of food. The World Bank uses absolute dollar PPP measures. They’re all blunt instruments that can’t compare individual situations. But the World Bank approach is a good way of measuring trends and comparing countries overall. Georgia looks to be in dire straits, for example.
- sam_lowry_ 7y agoGeorgia has black markets that far exceed Belarusian black markets in volume. Lots of Georgian stats are skewed because they do not account for black market.