Poverty Line

The poverty line is the level of income below which one cannot afford to purchase all the resources one requires to live. People who have an income below the poverty line have no disposable income, by definition.

The actual monetary value of the poverty line differs from place to place but is usually near some fixed value within a country. This occurs because the resources needed for living have different prices in different places. Even within a country, the poverty line can be markedly different between cities and farming towns, between areas of cold and warm climate, and so forth.

As almost all societies have some of their citizens living in poverty, the poverty line is useful as an economic tool by which to measure such people and consider socioeconomic reforms such as welfare and unemployment insurance to reduce poverty. It is not in a society's interest to have a large percentage of its citizens living below the poverty line as they have no disposable income and thus adversely affect economic growth. A baseline goal for a progressive government is to have all of its constituents possess an income level at least that of the poverty line.

Determining the poverty line is done by considering the essential resources that an average human adult consumes in one year and then summing their cost. The largest of these resources is typically the rent required to live in an apartment, so historically, economists have paid particular attention to the real estate market and housing prices as a strong poverty line effector.

Other factors are often thrown in to handle various circumstances, such as whether one is a parent, elderly, a child, married, etc. Some analysts also prefer to factor in "value of life" resource costs, such as entertainment, in societies where merely surviving is considered a little below the true poverty line.

Related Articles: Poverty line in the United States

Non-Fiction Usage: Poverty Line

Subject	Topic	Quote
Health		Demographic changes are leading to a growing number of older women who live alone, who fall near or below the poverty line, and who have little or no access to informal support or care. These women will place increasing demands on formal, publicly funded services. (references)
Children	Peru	Only 1.2 percent of children living in extreme poverty attain university-level education, compared with 25.6 percent of children who live above the poverty line. (references)
	Peru	Children living in poverty average only 4.5 years of education compared to 9.3 years for children living above the poverty line. (references)
Civil Liberties	Poland	Refugees may receive the same subsidies given to citizens living below the poverty line, but no additional money is available to them. (references)
Economic History	India	Industry and services sectors are growing in importance and account for 26% and 48% of GDP, respectively, while agriculture contributes about 25.6% of GDP. More than 35% of the population live below the poverty line, but a large and growing middle class of 150-200 million has disposable income for consumer goods. (references)
	China	The average per capita disposable income of urban residents in 2000 was $759 while rural per capita income was $272. (Rural incomes were overstated because the value of farm produce consumed at home was included; actual cash held by farmers was much lower - about $200.) The World Bank estimates that as many as 200 million Chinese live below the poverty line. (references)
	Bangladesh	Presently, about a third of the country's 130 million people live below the poverty line; the current per capita gross domestic product (GDP) is about $363. Bangladesh's investment policies are friendly to foreign investment, but implementation of these policies has been a continuing problem. (references)
Indigenous People	Malaysia	However, according to press reports, the head of an NGO working with Orang Asli said in May 2000 that school dropout rates among Orang Asli had increased markedly over previous years, and the percentage of Orang Asli living below the poverty line was increasing as well. (references)
Political Economy	Chile	The percentage of the population living below the poverty line decreased from 45 percent in 1987 to 20.6 percent in 2001. Annual per capita gross domestic product was approximately $4,000. The Government generally respected its citizens' human rights; however, problems remained in some areas. (references)
	Venezuela	There are abundant natural resources, and per capita gross domestic product (GDP) was $4,980. However, income is distributed unevenly, with approximately 80 percent of the population living at or below the 2000 poverty line of $1,986 per capita. (references)
Women	Bulgaria	Female-headed households frequently live below the poverty line. (references)
	Switzerland	Statistics from 1999 show that nearly 70 percent of women who did not work outside the home while married fell below the poverty line immediately after a divorce. (references)
Worker Rights	Albania	Nationwide more than 17 percent of the population lives under the official poverty line. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

Speeches: Poverty Line

Frequency of Internet Keywords: Poverty Line

Modern Translation: Poverty Line

Language		Translations for "poverty line"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Danish		mindsteeksistensbeløb (margin of subsistence, minimum subsistence figure), fattigdomsgrænse (margin of subsistence, minimum subsistence figure), eksistensminimum (margin of subsistence, minimum subsistence figure). (various references)

Dutch		minimum voor levensonderhoud (margin of subsistence, minimum subsistence figure), bestaansminimum (subsistence minimum), armoedegrens. (various references)

French		seuil de pauvreté, minimum vital. (various references)

German		Existenzminimum (subsistence level), Armutsgrenze. (various references)

Greek		κατώτατο όριο διαβίωσης (margin of subsistence, minimum subsistence figure), όριο ένδειας (margin of subsistence, minimum subsistence figure). (various references)

Italian		soglia di povert� . (various references)

Pig Latin		overtypay inelay

Portuguese		mínimo vital (margin of subsistence, minimum subsistence figure), limiar da pobreza. (various references)

Spanish		umbral de pobreza, renta mínima de subsistencia (margin of subsistence, minimum subsistence figure), mínimo vital (margin of subsistence, minimum subsistence figure). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Anagrams: Poverty Line

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "e-e-i-l-n-o-p-r-t-v-y"
	-2 letters: interlope, repletion, terpineol.
	-3 letters: entirely, eyepoint, leporine, lientery, overlent, petronel, polytene, provenly, replevin, terpinol.
	-4 letters: eloiner, elytron, entropy, envelop, ineptly, inertly, livener, neotype, nervily, novelty, overlet, overlie, overlit, overply, overtip, overtly, penlite, pereion, perlite, petiole, peytrel, pioneer, pointer, poitrel, politer, polyene, potline, poverty, prevent, proline, pronely, protein, protyle, relievo, replevy, reptile, retinol, topline.
	Words containing the letters "e-e-i-l-n-o-p-r-t-v-y"
	+1 letter: protensively.
	+4 letters: introspectively.
	+5 letters: hyperventilation, prerevolutionary.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.

Speaker	Term	Phrase(s)
Ronald Reagan	1981-1989	To encourage opportunity and jobs rather than dependency and welfare, we will propose that individuals living at or near the poverty line be totally exempt from Federal income tax.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Expression	Frequency per Day
poverty line	52
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Poverty Line

Definition: Poverty Line

Poverty Line

Noun

Synonym: Poverty Line

Specialty Definition: Poverty line

Non-Fiction Usage: Poverty Line

Speeches: Poverty Line

Ronald Reagan

Frequency of Internet Keywords: Poverty Line

Modern Translation: Poverty Line

Danish

Dutch

French

German

Greek

Italian

Pig Latin

Portuguese

Spanish

Anagrams: Poverty Line

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

Alternative Orthography: Poverty Line

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