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How do you think developing counties come up with their poverty lines? This new international number is just the median of those…

automatic6131 1y ago
Usually they choose a deliberately stupid measurement such as "household income below a percentage of the median wage". This is stupid for many reasons, including (but not limited to): non-monetary, in-kind benefits being excluded, perverse outcomes such as a decline in median wages "reducing poverty" and just about guaranteed continuation of this "poverty". So left wing politicians LOVE it. It's an everlasting cudgel that can never be fixed.
- DiogenesKynikos 1y ago
  It's fairly easy to fix, as long as you are willing to do what it takes to address income inequality. Reduce the Gini coefficient and poverty decreases.
  - automatic6131 1y ago
    That's actually my point: if you take (e.g.) 65% of median income, in a world with a Gini coefficient of 1 - perfect inequality - the rate of poverty is 0%.
    - DiogenesKynikos 1y ago
      But that's an edge case that will never occur in reality.
- kingkawn 1y ago
  all your examples would not add up to someone who meets the standards for poverty not in real world terms being too poor to live well
- abdullahkhalids 1y ago
  > non-monetary, in-kind benefits being excluded This seems sane. The real question one should ask is, how many people can earn a living that allows them to meet basic needs, without state support? You can have a separate figure that out of the number of poor people (like defined in the last sentence), how many are no longer poor with state support?
dudeinjapan 1y ago
There should be a universal human standard to define what extreme poverty is--i.e. the amount needed to secure food, shelter, and clothing--and then that amount should be assessed country-by-country (or region-by-region) by an independent body. The number of $3 per day is well above the "basic needs" threshold in some of the poorest countries, and well below it in the US, for example.
- duskwuff 1y ago
  This is addressed in the article - see the section titled "Estimating comparable national distributions". (In short: income is being scaled relative to purchasing power parity.)
- ivape 1y ago
  Makes you wonder what the real purpose of that number was. Must have served some agenda, because saying some people live on less than $3 (when it's not a fair statement) definitely could serve a purpose.
  - owebmaster 1y ago
    How is that not a fair statement?
    - ivape 1y ago
      $3 USD can buy you basic things per day like food, but it won’t buy you that in America, for example. It’s not a fair metric at all. $3 buys you various foods in various parts of the world, which would not put you in abject poverty.
      - owebmaster 1y ago
        $3 a day makes you filthy poor in South America and probably everywhere besides India but there are still poorer people there.
        1y ago

automatic6131 1y ago

Usually they choose a deliberately stupid measurement such as "household income below a percentage of the median wage". This is stupid for many reasons, including (but not limited to): non-monetary, in-kind benefits being excluded, perverse outcomes such as a decline in median wages "reducing poverty" and just about guaranteed continuation of this "poverty". So left wing politicians LOVE it. It's an everlasting cudgel that can never be fixed.

DiogenesKynikos 1y ago
It's fairly easy to fix, as long as you are willing to do what it takes to address income inequality. Reduce the Gini coefficient and poverty decreases.
- automatic6131 1y ago
  That's actually my point: if you take (e.g.) 65% of median income, in a world with a Gini coefficient of 1 - perfect inequality - the rate of poverty is 0%.
  - DiogenesKynikos 1y ago
    But that's an edge case that will never occur in reality.
kingkawn 1y ago
all your examples would not add up to someone who meets the standards for poverty not in real world terms being too poor to live well
abdullahkhalids 1y ago
> non-monetary, in-kind benefits being excluded This seems sane. The real question one should ask is, how many people can earn a living that allows them to meet basic needs, without state support? You can have a separate figure that out of the number of poor people (like defined in the last sentence), how many are no longer poor with state support?

dudeinjapan 1y ago

There should be a universal human standard to define what extreme poverty is--i.e. the amount needed to secure food, shelter, and clothing--and then that amount should be assessed country-by-country (or region-by-region) by an independent body. The number of $3 per day is well above the "basic needs" threshold in some of the poorest countries, and well below it in the US, for example.

duskwuff 1y ago
This is addressed in the article - see the section titled "Estimating comparable national distributions". (In short: income is being scaled relative to purchasing power parity.)
ivape 1y ago
Makes you wonder what the real purpose of that number was. Must have served some agenda, because saying some people live on less than $3 (when it's not a fair statement) definitely could serve a purpose.
- owebmaster 1y ago
  How is that not a fair statement?
  - ivape 1y ago
    $3 USD can buy you basic things per day like food, but it won’t buy you that in America, for example. It’s not a fair metric at all. $3 buys you various foods in various parts of the world, which would not put you in abject poverty.
    - owebmaster 1y ago
      $3 a day makes you filthy poor in South America and probably everywhere besides India but there are still poorer people there.
      - 1y ago