How Poverty Is Measured In America

Poverty is measured in various ways based on the different cultures, lifestyles, experiences, and government standards. In countries such as America, the government has set up a poverty line that defines absolute poverty standards, or the income needed to provide for basic needs of the family. Government standards are an accurate way to compare families labeled as being “poverty stricken” because the line of poverty takes into account the income needed to cover basic needs for the variety of families across the whole country. Throughout communities poverty is also determined by relative poverty, or the average standard of living in the society in which they live. Therefore, these relative standards can change based on the cultures, lifestyles and values that the community believes in. Both relative and absolute poverty standards are common ways that poverty is measured in American and in other countries throughout the world.
In each country poverty can be defined by absolute
Therefore, the exact definition of poverty can change from place to place based on what a community views as being poor. The culture a family lives in and is surrounded by will cause “The exact definition of poverty to vary from one community to another. Most people define the term based on their unique cultures, lifestyles, and experiences.”(Allard). As Scott Allard describes, every person has different values, and in one community the people may view not owning something such as a car as a sign of poverty, where as in another culture they would not consider the lack of a car a sign of poverty. Therefore, in developed countries such as America, a familiy considered impoverished by relative standards, could be considered wealthy in a different, underdeveloped country because they have lower relative poverty standards than in