5 ms·

Shouldn't we be looking at the percentage of people who suffer from food insecurity and lack of access to permanent housing to begin with? How far a dollar stre

by hliyan 3y ago

Shouldn't we be looking at the percentage of people who suffer from food insecurity and lack of access to permanent housing to begin with? How far a dollar stretches, changes over space and time.

hgsgm 3y ago
I know it's been extremely suspicious of this extreme poverty metric, because anyone who earns a wage but can't afford sufficient food and shelter is "non-extreme poverty" , while subsistence farming is "extreme poverty". It seems to play into the global capitalist scheme of luring people into debt servitude with a false promise of high wages in a distant city / country.
- Aunche 3y ago
  You think researchers who dedicate their lives to measuring extreme poverty don't even account for a problem that you instantly thought about? > In all these statistics, the researchers are not only taking people’s monetary income into account, but also their non-monetary income and home production. One reason why this is important is because many poor people are small-scale farmers who produce their own food.
  - syndicatedjelly 3y ago
    Seems about par for the brain trust here
  - bllguo 3y ago
    okay. pray tell how a definition of poverty that claims 93% of china, 94% of mexico, 40% of spain, etc. is poor is useful. we can see the damn data in front of us, so you can feign outrage all you want - they clearly did not account for the problem. it has nothing to do with competence. we can and have defined per-country poverty lines, which these people obviously know. this is a malicious effort to present a twisted narrative of western superiority.
verteu 3y ago
The chart says it's "adjusted for inflation and for differences in the cost of living between countries."
- pphysch 3y ago
  That doesn't matter if it ignores the qualitative differences between having shelter+food vs. not having shelter+food.
- somenameforme 3y ago
  Its adjustments lead it to still claim that > 99% of India, Indonesia, Philippines are all in "extreme poverty", that > 90% of Thailand and China are, that 84% of Russia is and so on. Those are not remotely realistic figures.
  - consilient 3y ago
    You're looking at the chart for "ordinary" poverty, which they've pegged at $30 equivalent per day. Their threshold for extreme poverty is $2.15/day.
    - rayiner 3y ago
      I don’t know how they’re adjusting for cost of living, but that’s not even a good definition of “ordinary poverty.” As of 2011, Pew defined $10 PPP dollars as the middle income threshold. 10-15% of Bangladeshis have a car—but according to the chart, 99.5% are in poverty.
  - fnordpiglet 3y ago
    I’m only familiar with Thailand if those countries, and $30/day is roughly $900/month, or 27000 baht per month in Thailand. That’s a pretty good income. I would bet the vast majority of people make less than that. Seems legit.
pphysch 3y ago
Yes, there is quite a human difference between being a subsistence farmer that "earns" almost nothing, yet has stores of food and a safe home, and someone sleeping on the streets in a big city. But poverty metrics often views them as the same. Sadly this is likely because these metrics are weaponized to show how superior and civilized the West is, which has largely abandoned subsistence farming. That's also why this article doesn't directly mention China, which is the runaway leader in large-scale poverty alleviation efforts over the last few decades.
- simonh 3y ago
  This study takes into account home production and non-monetary income.
  - pphysch 3y ago
    Some of the backing studies do, but the linked article, which is the object of discussion, absolutely does not. Have you read them?
    - verteu 3y ago
      > Some of the backing studies do, but the linked article, which is the object of discussion, absolutely does not. Have you read them? From the linked article: > Basics of global poverty measurement > Throughout this article – and in global income and expenditure data generally – the statisticians who produce these figures are careful to make these numbers as comparable as possible. > Non-monetary sources of income are taken into account > Many poor people today and in the past rely on subsistence farming and do not have a monetary income. To take this into account and make a fair comparison of their living standards, the statisticians that produce these figures estimate the monetary value of their home production and add it to their income/expenditure. > Differences in purchasing power and inflation are taken into account
      - pphysch 3y ago
        ...And the article disregards all of that by using a high-income-adjusted poverty line for low/medium income countries. Textbook data crime: such a strange hill to die on! The data is all there, in the linked studies. They could easily have used the actually correct data (i.e. per-country poverty lines). But then e.g. China would go from 90-100% poverty bracket (dark red) to the 10-20% bracket (light brown), which is obviously not the conclusion that the blog post* wants readers to be impressed with. * authored by the director of a global development program at Oxford
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by hliyan 3y ago

Shouldn't we be looking at the percentage of people who suffer from food insecurity and lack of access to permanent housing to begin with? How far a dollar stretches, changes over space and time.

hgsgm 3y ago

I know it's been extremely suspicious of this extreme poverty metric, because anyone who earns a wage but can't afford sufficient food and shelter is "non-extreme poverty" , while subsistence farming is "extreme poverty". It seems to play into the global capitalist scheme of luring people into debt servitude with a false promise of high wages in a distant city / country.

Aunche 3y ago
You think researchers who dedicate their lives to measuring extreme poverty don't even account for a problem that you instantly thought about? > In all these statistics, the researchers are not only taking people’s monetary income into account, but also their non-monetary income and home production. One reason why this is important is because many poor people are small-scale farmers who produce their own food.
- syndicatedjelly 3y ago
  Seems about par for the brain trust here
- bllguo 3y ago
  okay. pray tell how a definition of poverty that claims 93% of china, 94% of mexico, 40% of spain, etc. is poor is useful. we can see the damn data in front of us, so you can feign outrage all you want - they clearly did not account for the problem. it has nothing to do with competence. we can and have defined per-country poverty lines, which these people obviously know. this is a malicious effort to present a twisted narrative of western superiority.

verteu 3y ago

The chart says it's "adjusted for inflation and for differences in the cost of living between countries."

pphysch 3y ago
That doesn't matter if it ignores the qualitative differences between having shelter+food vs. not having shelter+food.
somenameforme 3y ago
Its adjustments lead it to still claim that > 99% of India, Indonesia, Philippines are all in "extreme poverty", that > 90% of Thailand and China are, that 84% of Russia is and so on. Those are not remotely realistic figures.
- consilient 3y ago
  You're looking at the chart for "ordinary" poverty, which they've pegged at $30 equivalent per day. Their threshold for extreme poverty is $2.15/day.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    I don’t know how they’re adjusting for cost of living, but that’s not even a good definition of “ordinary poverty.” As of 2011, Pew defined $10 PPP dollars as the middle income threshold. 10-15% of Bangladeshis have a car—but according to the chart, 99.5% are in poverty.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  I’m only familiar with Thailand if those countries, and $30/day is roughly $900/month, or 27000 baht per month in Thailand. That’s a pretty good income. I would bet the vast majority of people make less than that. Seems legit.

pphysch 3y ago

Yes, there is quite a human difference between being a subsistence farmer that "earns" almost nothing, yet has stores of food and a safe home, and someone sleeping on the streets in a big city. But poverty metrics often views them as the same. Sadly this is likely because these metrics are weaponized to show how superior and civilized the West is, which has largely abandoned subsistence farming. That's also why this article doesn't directly mention China, which is the runaway leader in large-scale poverty alleviation efforts over the last few decades.

simonh 3y ago
This study takes into account home production and non-monetary income.
- pphysch 3y ago
  Some of the backing studies do, but the linked article, which is the object of discussion, absolutely does not. Have you read them?
  - verteu 3y ago
    > Some of the backing studies do, but the linked article, which is the object of discussion, absolutely does not. Have you read them? From the linked article: > Basics of global poverty measurement > Throughout this article – and in global income and expenditure data generally – the statisticians who produce these figures are careful to make these numbers as comparable as possible. > Non-monetary sources of income are taken into account > Many poor people today and in the past rely on subsistence farming and do not have a monetary income. To take this into account and make a fair comparison of their living standards, the statisticians that produce these figures estimate the monetary value of their home production and add it to their income/expenditure. > Differences in purchasing power and inflation are taken into account
    - pphysch 3y ago
      ...And the article disregards all of that by using a high-income-adjusted poverty line for low/medium income countries. Textbook data crime: such a strange hill to die on! The data is all there, in the linked studies. They could easily have used the actually correct data (i.e. per-country poverty lines). But then e.g. China would go from 90-100% poverty bracket (dark red) to the 10-20% bracket (light brown), which is obviously not the conclusion that the blog post* wants readers to be impressed with. * authored by the director of a global development program at Oxford

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]