Poverty is the curse of mankind along with sickness. Poverty exists all over the world but in varying degrees. But what exactly is poverty and how is it measured? The following chart was prepared by the US office of Management and Budget using data from the US Census Bureau and shows what poverty is defined as in this country:

Even these definitions of poverty are flawed. Lets look at the chart. The chart represents the year 2002. If you are 64.5 years old and your income is 9359 you are at the poverty level but six month later you become 65 years old and with the same income you are no longer considered to be in poverty. This kind of figuring stops many elderly over 65 from appearing at the poverty level, good going you politicians. Now a five person family with an income of 22,377 is considered to be in poverty but if there income is 22,378 they are no longer considered to be in poverty. I suppose you have to make a break somewhere but this is ridiculous. Sadly the poverty level in the US is increasing. It went from 11.7 percent in 2001 to 12.1 percent in 2002. The figures are listed with the US Department of Commerce. Even the 11.7 percent figure is way too high for a great country like the United States, but to see it increasing is unthinkable. But lets talk numbers of people. We are talking about 34.6 MILLION people in the United States below the poverty level in 2002. Remember the figure may be even higher because it may not take into account those homeless that move around. As bad as these figures are the poverty rate for children in the US is even worse. The rate is an unbelievable 16.7 percent in 2002 which is the same as it was in 2001 which shows that nothing is being done to try and lower it. Even though the rate didn't change the numbers increased from 11.7 MILLION to 12.1 MILLION children.(All these figures are public and can be found at http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p60-222.pdf)

Looking at other areas of the world, one starts to get a picture of abundant poverty in many areas of the globe, even in those countries considered wealthy. Australia in 1995 had 19.6 percent of people below their poverty line. (National Institute of Labour Studies Monograph Series No.2, NILS, SA Canada is a lot more generous on its tables for poverty. In 2000 you were considered living in poverty if you had a 4 person family and made 33, 400 dollars. Different agencies in Canada have different poverty levels however and some are much higher. The Canadian government decided to make a promise to end child poverty by the year 2000. They didn't, but it dropped quit considerably from about 19 percent to 15.6 percent in 2001 (Source for figures is Canada's Income Trends In Canada 2001) Canada is working on the poverty problem not only with children but with families as well.

Unfortunately trying to compare poverty in the developed countries using the UN statistics is not possible because they only show poverty as making less than one dollar a day.

If one were to look at a world map that showed undernourished areas you would immediately be struck by central and southern Africa all being shaded in along with India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mongolia, Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bolivia, Guatemala and the Philippines. These are the poorest of the poor areas. Some of these areas are also the areas where business is beginning to flow to because of the low wages. This is just starting to make the wages rise thus improving conditions. In 1999 the UN declared that the 225 richest people in the world at that time had wealth equal to the combined annual income of the world's 2.5 BILLION poorest people. I am not a socialist, but there is something wrong here. The wealth of the three richest people in the world combined exceed the combined Gross National Product of the 48 least developed countries. From 1970 to 1985 the people in poverty grew by 17 percent yet the worlds gross national product grew over 40 percent.

The UNDP reported that in 1996 100 countries were worse off than they were fifteen years before. Is it no wonder that there is so much unrest in the world. The world is getting to be a poorer place for most of us, even those in the good old US of A. Its about time the people in positions of leadership with the governments of the world dedicated themselves to helping their people instead of only lining their own pockets.