In the U.S. there are two measures for poverty. The first is the traditional one, a measure of absolute deprivation. The second is measure of relative deprivation. There are several genuinely impoverished people out there, and it's unfortunate that the "relatively impoverished" have the opportunity to gain access to the some of the assistance that should be reserved for really poor people.

However, the U.S. Social Security Administration sets an official poverty level at three times the amount of income needed to buy a realistic amount of food for each person to stay healthy. If your spending a third of your money on food and the recommended maximum of a quarter of your money on rent or mortgage then you are truly needy.

But there is another viewpoint on what it means to be poor. Some social welfare poverty specialists have pushed the idea of poverty as a matter of society's standard of living. According to this idea, what were luxuries only a couple of decades ago, such as microwaves, computers, and cell phones, should now be considered necessities that all people are entitled to.

If not taken out of proportion, the latter idea could be acceptable. For instance, it's not unreasonable to consider a basic car a necessity for a family with kids. Parents need to get to places where city buses don't go, or only go at certain times. Parents can't always beg neighbors for rides or pack kids on a bicycle and take them to the doctor or grocery store. In certain situations cars really are necessities for people. However, there are some who'd like to like to define low income as "poverty". Those are two different things.

Many low-income people feel impoverished because they can't help but compare their possessions and lifestyle with those of other Americans, especially as seen through the media. And while that may be understandable, I don't think it justifies any potential automatic entitlement to the luxuries they may crave.

Many of those who are in a valid state of poverty are not who we think they are. The vast majority of the people at the official poverty rate are children. Others are disabled, elderly, or impaired in some way. The rest are able-bodied adults who are temporarily at the poverty line, and a few members of what is referred to as the underclass, who are born and raised into the most extreme poverty imaginable in an industrialized nation.

All people who range between the working class and the lower middle class I would call simply poor. But the working poor on down to the underclass are too impoverished to even buy food and toilet paper. There is a drastic difference between living with a low income and living in real poverty. It takes money to make money, and low income people as least have some money.

People in poverty literally haven't a penny to spare and frequently scrape pennies together just to buy hot dogs and potatoes. People may be poor , or low income, because of careless or miscalculated choices, but no one chooses to live in real poverty anymore then anyone would choose to go off and live in a third world country with no particular mission, no relatives, and no claim to any special status that protects them from starvation and sickness. Most people only think they have it rough untill they meet someone who really lives in poverty.

Learn more about this author, Lana Evans.
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