Poverty is about not having enough money to meet basic needs including food, clothing and shelter. However, poverty is more, much more than just not having enough money.
The World Bank Organization describes poverty in this way:
"Poverty is hunger. poverty is lack of shelter.Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is a fear for the future, living one day at a time."
In addition to a lack of money, poverty is about not being able to participate in recreational activities; not being able to send children on a day trip with their schoolmates or to a birthday party; not being able to pay for medications for an illness. These are all costs of being poor. Those people who are barely able to pay for food and shelter simply can't consider these other expenses. When people are excluded within a society, when they are not well educated and when they have a higher incidence of illness, there are negative consequences for society. We all pay the price for poverty. The increased cost on the health system, the justice system and other systems that provide supports to those living in poverty has an impact on our economy.
Causes of Poverty:
1. Almost half the world _over 3 billion people _live on less than $2.50 a day.
2. The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 heavily indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the World's 7 richest people combined.
3. Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
4. Less than one percent of what the World spent every year on Weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn't happen.
5. 1 billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the World). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).
Structural Adjustment_A Major cause of Poverty:
Cutbacks in health,education and other vital social services around the world have resulted from structural adjustment policies prescribed by the International Monetary Fund(IMF) and the World Bank as conditions for loans and repayment. In addition, developing nation governments are required to open their economies to compete with each other and with more powerful and established industrialized nations. To attract investment, poor countries enter a spiraling race to the bottom to see who can provide lower standards, reduced wages and cheaper resources. This has increased poverty and inequality for most people. It also forms a backbone to what we today call globalization. As a result, it maintains the historic unequal rules of trade.
World Hunger And Poverty:
Meaningful long-term alleviation of hunger is rooted in the alleviation of poverty, as poverty leads to hunger. World hunger is a terrible symptom of world poverty. If efforts are only directed at providing food, or improving food production or distribution, then the structural root causes that create hunger and poverty.
Corruption:
We often hear leaders from rich countries telling poor countries that aid and loans will only be given when they show they are stamping out corruption. While that definitely needs to happen, the rich countries themselves are often active in the largest forms of corruption in those poor countries, and many economic policies they prescribe have exacerbated the problem.
Tax Avoidance And Tax Havens; Undermining Democracy
Through tax havens,transfer pricing and many other policies_both legal and illegal_billions of dollars of tax are avoided. The much-needed money would helped developing(and developed) countries provide important social services for their populations. As the global financial crisis has affected many countries ,tackling tax avoidance would help target those more likely to have contributed to the problem while avoid many unnecessary austerity measures that hit the poorest so hard.
Inequality:
Three things are striking about the rise in economic in equality since the 1970s in the United States. (1) It doesn't really matter which measure of income distribution we choose;they all show a rise in inequality. (2) There are many different competing possible explanations and interpretations. (3) We do not need to agree on the explanation to agree on what are sensible policies to lessen inequality.
(1) Measures of inequality
There are many different measures of inequality. Even when just measuring inequality of income, one might look at the Gini coefficient, the poverty rate,income going to the upper 1% or 1/4%, the high -low range,the wage share ,or median income. Also of interest are measures of the distribution of wealth and measures of inter-generational mobility.
(2) Diagnoses
Normally one would think that diagnosing the cause for such a fundamental shift would be a necessary step in prescribing a cure. In that case one might be discouraged by the over-abundance of plausible explanations that have been offered and the difficulty in choosing among them.
. The first of the explanations for inequality of earned income is technological change(such as information technology) that raises the demand for skilled workers faster than the supply. It can explain an observed widening gap in wages or income between skilled and "unskilled" workers, defined according to whether they are college-educated. But this has little to do with the gap between the upper 1% and the rest.
Basically, Inequality is defined as, "Economic Inequality is sometimes called income inequality, wealth inequality, or the wealth gap. Economists generally focus on economic disparity in three metrics: wealth,income, and consumption. The issue of economic inequality is relevant to notions of equity, equality of outcome, and equality of opportunity".
(1) Measures of inequality
There are many different measures of inequality. Even when just measuring inequality of income, one might look at the Gini coefficient, the poverty rate,income going to the upper 1% or 1/4%, the high -low range,the wage share ,or median income. Also of interest are measures of the distribution of wealth and measures of inter-generational mobility.
(2) Diagnoses
Normally one would think that diagnosing the cause for such a fundamental shift would be a necessary step in prescribing a cure. In that case one might be discouraged by the over-abundance of plausible explanations that have been offered and the difficulty in choosing among them.
. The first of the explanations for inequality of earned income is technological change(such as information technology) that raises the demand for skilled workers faster than the supply. It can explain an observed widening gap in wages or income between skilled and "unskilled" workers, defined according to whether they are college-educated. But this has little to do with the gap between the upper 1% and the rest.
Basically, Inequality is defined as, "Economic Inequality is sometimes called income inequality, wealth inequality, or the wealth gap. Economists generally focus on economic disparity in three metrics: wealth,income, and consumption. The issue of economic inequality is relevant to notions of equity, equality of outcome, and equality of opportunity".
CREDIT::https://youtu.be/U5qig9HIJ7k
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