Working on poverty is like being in politics, everyone has an opinion on the subject. While I welcome multiple view points on an issue, having an opinion does not necessarily mean having something worth saying.

My professional work with my company, Idealistics, is based in U.S. poverty, as is the focus of this site. However, I try to stay current on developing world poverty and its consequences, such as the recent floods in Pakistan that have affected an estimated 20 million people.

I, like most people who work on domestic poverty issues, have a global appreciation for the depth of developing world poverty. It seems to make sense that if one cares about improving the lives of hurting people, political borders do not restrict one’s compassion.

Therefore, I find it both besides the point and painfully stupid when some argue that the poor in the United States are clearly better off because poverty in the U.S. is marked by obesity, whereas in nations with extreme poverty (less than two dollars per day) food insecurity is associated with emaciation.

The undertone of such comparisons is that the poor in the United States are somehow better off because they can experience obesity, hyper-tension, diabetes, and heart disease, to name a few maladies of poor nutrition. I fail to see anything to be grateful for in this list of physical ailments.

The deeper issue with comparing U.S. poverty and international development of course is a subtext that extreme poverty is a more worthwhile issue to focus on.

I am unwilling to pit poor against poor. To me, poverty, domestic and abroad, is a social ill worthy of eradication, whether poverty forces people to starve or gorge themselves to death.

Absolute and Relative Poverty

The economics underlying the debate between developed and developing world poverty is the difference between what is referred to as absolute and relative poverty. Absolute poverty is a universal worldwide standard, such as the two dollars a day poverty line. Relative poverty, like the U.S. poverty line, is a measurement that is established relative to a society’s standards of living. These standards change over time and the way they are formulated can be quite controversial, as has been the case in the U.S.

It is true that when poverty is measured in monetary terms, the poor in the United States are significantly wealthier than their developing world counterparts. However, money is simply a proxy for poverty status, it is not a core poverty indicator.

Instead, indicators like life expectancy, infant mortality rates, literacy rates, and other such variables are more telling. These are also indicators the United States embarrassingly lags behind its developed world peers on.

Moreover, the quality of one’s life is assuredly a part of defining one’s true poverty status. Regardless of whether one uses the absolute or relative standard of poverty, in either case those experiencing poverty are subjected to lower life expectancies and significant social isolation versus their higher earning peers.

So when it comes to discussing the moral superiority of working on domestic poverty versus developing world poverty, let’s cut the fat and be real. Whether you focus on poverty in the United States, another developed nation, or the developing world, we all strive to reduce human suffering, wherever it is, and whatever form it takes.

Photo credit: Pressbound