I believe any discussion about poverty needs to take place in the context of understanding that poverty is relative.

What may constitute poverty in one country may be vastly different from the experience of poverty in another. In wealthy 'developed' economies, if you need welfare assistance it is usually because you do not have an income and/or living standard sufficient to enjoy what most people consider to be a moderately comfortable life -that is - to live without fear of debt and to plan for future enjoyment.

Modest consumption after basic needs of food and shelter requires a regular income of more than the current welfare payment in order to maintain.

Poverty is relative. It is also isolating. What is the sense of isolating people from the mainstream by further reducing their opportunities to attain and enjoy a middle-class standard of living? The system already traps too many into relative poverty.

Further breaking down of wages and working conditions is likely to destroy the work ethic even more than unemployment and ageism has already done. Many women in their sixties now are likely to experience poverty in their old age because they did not have the opportunities to earn income or contribute to superannuation until after they had reared their families.

Poverty is relative, isolating and it can make or keep you sick. Some public-hospital-based programs of preventative care have been scrapped. Awareness and funding is being devolved to charities and service clubs like Rotary.

Poverty is relative. I think anyone who wants to understand this this needs to live for 3 years on the basic welfare payment, stripped of regular supplementary income and assets and support systems (eg family). Live a year in this country - then in Thailand or Cambodia or an African nation state and then do a year in the USA.

After all is said and done, more will be said than done, I reckon.

Would you have said:-

~Any discussion about starvation needs to take place in the context of understanding that starvation is relative. ~

Perhaps not. We need less relative concepts and some more realistic measures of any material deficit that people endure.

We don't ask that people regard the "value of human life" as being a relative thing based on nationality. So why do we attempt to create obscure relative notions of hardship.

The every rising "poverty line" as defined in Australia does a great dis-service to any meaningful attempt to address issues of real poverty. We give handouts to people on substantial above average incomes just because they have children. We define old as being a disability. Its time that we got real

Terje, Starvation is not relative. Starvation is an absolute. It means 'no food'.

Mollydukes,

That is was my very point. We should be using absolute terms like starvation rates, infant mortality, disease incidents, literacy rates etc to compare countries.

Relativistic terms, as the word poverty has become, are useless benchmarks with which to measure and manage social progress.

Regards,
Terje.