Preview

To what extent is reducing the number of people living in absolute poverty sufficient to achieve economic growth and development?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1222 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
To what extent is reducing the number of people living in absolute poverty sufficient to achieve economic growth and development?
To what extent is reducing the number of people living in absolute poverty sufficient to achieve economic growth and development?

Absolute poverty measures the number of people living below a certain income threshold or the number of households unable to afford certain basic goods and services. Much of the poverty in developing countries, such as South Africa, tends to be absolute poverty. Economic growth can be defined as steady growth in the productive capacity of the economy. Short term growth is measured by the annual percentage change in real national output, which is affected by shifts in short run aggregate supply curve (SRAS), whilst long term growth is shown by the increased in potential growth can is illustrated by an outward shift in a country's long run aggregate supply curve (LRAS). Whilst a rise in real GDP can lift millions of people out of absolute poverty, a reduction in the number of people living in absolute poverty can help to achieve economic development.

In order to reduce the number of people living in absolute poverty, they would have to get jobs in order to gain a living. This means that people would have more disposable income, thus increasing consumption which is a factor of aggregate demand and would therefore shift the aggregate demand curve to the right, causing economic development. This would also mean that the government would also have more money which can be used to invest in education and training or other forms of spending. A lack of education and training is what keeps people in absolute poverty as it prevents them from getting jobs and moving up, however, if education and training were to increase, more people would be getting jobs, thus increasing real GDP whilst resulting in economic growth.

Furthermore, government spending is also a component of the aggregate demand formula and therefore an increase in that would result in an increase in aggregate demand, thus causing an outward shift in the SRAS whig would

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Summary Of Flavio's Home

    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages

    What is absolute poverty? Here in the United States, I don’t think that we have an idea of that concept. In this country, we have what is called the “poverty line.” This is a measure of poverty by our sociological standards. In the great scheme of things, however, is that really poverty compared to other places in the world? I think not.…

    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    According to the World Bank, the international plan to reduce poverty by half was originally supposed to be reached by the year 2015, but the high number of poor people is high, and they are spread out everywhere. The developing states are trying to recover, but the financial crisis’ that have occurred have stunned the growth and opportunities that we are supposed to be experiencing.…

    • 1753 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    There are three definitions of poverty. The first is absolute, the second is relative and the third is overall poverty. The definition of absolute poverty is considered to be objective and sometimes even scientific and is based on subsistence. At least a minimum standard is needed to sustain life, so anyone who does not reach the subsistence level experiences absolute poverty. People living in it lack financial resources and therefore they are starving and in countries such as Great Britain they freeze in winter because they cannot afford heating. Actually every winter in Britain an increasing number of elderly people die of hypothermia due to the lack of money for heating their homes. The definition of absolute poverty is thus linked to an attempt to clarify the subsistence. The problem of poverty could therefore be removed if it was found what it took to survive.…

    • 1682 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Absolute poverty is when one doesn’t have the minimum amount of income that is required for basic living conditions and needs over a long period of time. E.g. people do not have access to good food or have access to too little food, they are not able to have fruit and vegetables every day. They might not have access to health care, especially countries outside the UK. Although it is the law for children to go to school in this country however people outside who are categorised as to being in absolute poverty will not have access to school or education.…

    • 160 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Their disaster relief: 276,675 individuals helped after the Haiti earthquake; Community clean up, emergency home repairs, new house construction, and ongoing support through Habitat ReStores…

    • 992 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver. This shows us it is more important to be healthy, and keep healthy and therefore live longer than to spend a short lifetime earning money, because money will not make your life any longer.…

    • 1676 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Poverty is measured and defined in two terms: absolute poverty and relative poverty. Absolute poverty is based on the basic human needs that help to sustain life, such as food, shelter and clothing. Any person living in a situation where the basic needs of human beings are not being met are said to be living in absolute poverty. Relative poverty refers to a situation in which a person lacks the necessary resources to enable them to participate in the normal and desirable patterns of life that exist in their society. People, who earn less than 50% of the median income of their society, are classed as living in relative poverty. As societies become more affluent, standards for relative poverty are gradually adjusted upwards accordingly. (O'Donnell, 1992)The Individualistic theories of poverty hold the belief that people are poor due to their own inefficiency. Social and cultural factors are not totally disregarded, however more emphasis is placed on improper behaviours of individuals. The central ideology behind individualism is the belief that those who suffer from…

    • 2128 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Being in a situation with little or no money has many negative effects on people. Not only in poor countries, but many families in the United States too experience poverty. Poverty can mean many different things. Not having a good primary school or health center, not having access to safe drinking water, powerlessness and discrimination. As years go on, poverty will continue to worsen if nothing is done about it. There are many solutions to reduce the number of people living in poverty today. Although there are several programs designed to help the less fortunate, the governments ought to seek actively further resolutions to help get this worldwide problem under control.…

    • 1669 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Absolute poverty is when people are only able to meet the bare essentials of life such as food, clothing, clean water, education, shelter etc. Economic development is the improvement of people’s freedom to live long and healthy lives and to focus on other goals they have reason to value.…

    • 656 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    'An absolute standard means one defined by reference to the actual needs of the poor and not by reference to the expenditure of those who are not poor. A family is poor if it cannot afford to eat.' (Keith Joseph, 1979) There are different arguments on how absolute poverty should be defined. A strength of absolute poverty is that it allows us to focus on what is really important in human life, Absolute poverty is easier to measure, and therefore easier to research.…

    • 276 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    People in the poor countries have a low educational level and low technological level because the government doesn’t have enough money to spend on the educational and technological areas. That’s why the countries with poverty have few professional laborers, high skilled workers and knowledgeable workers; thus, they have low productivity. They are not able to produce valuable products. So they cannot get away from poverty. Last but not least, they can only work on the primary industries such as farming and mining; therefore, they can only confine their production on producing low value products or some inferior goods such as crops and minerals. As the result, they have a low GDP and remain poor. For example, India is the country that suffers from poverty because of the poor finances in government. It doesn’t have sufficient amount of money to enhance its educational and technological level; consequently, it can only produce low value product and it is not able to become wealthy. In spite of the causes of poverty are so serious, it also causes many serious and lethal effects such as famine and health…

    • 690 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Issues of Poverty

    • 575 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Poverty is a complex problem that is easily understood but hard to solve. We understand that on the global scale, poverty rate is on a decline as a result of economic development that lifts millions of people out of the poverty trap. In fact, the World Bank estimated that people living on less than $1.25 a day dropped by from 1.8 billion to 1.4 billion between 1995 and 2005. Although this is a remarkable gain, it shall not understate that more than 1 billion people are still living in extreme poverty. So, there remains much work to be done to solve poverty and it helps to think of the issue in terms of the following frameworks.…

    • 575 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Poverty is basically the condition of having insufficient resources or income. It is the state of being where one is deprived of necessities in life such as housing, food, sufficient income, employment and access to required social services and status. There are many forms of poverty which exists in this world such as absolute poverty, relative poverty, human poverty and lastly income poverty. Absolute poverty is defined as living to an absolute minimum standard which is called the 'poverty line' where people barely have sufficient resources to live. Relative poverty is when people are poor in relation to people around them in the country. Income poverty is when people are poor when they have less money than the defined poverty line in their country and lastly human poverty takes account other factors such as life expectancy, infant mortality, nutrition, illiteracy and lack of food and clean water and lack of health services. Poverty exists in both MEDC's and LEDC's, however, absolute poverty and the places which suffer poverty severely and the most is in LEDC's such as Africa, Asia, Latin America and some countries in Eastern Europe. People in these countries, struggle daily for food, shelter and other necessities. They also often suffer from severe malnutrition, epidemic disease outbreaks, famine and war. However, poverty in MEDC's is usually due to poor nutrition, mental illness, drug dependence, crime and high rates of disease. There are many reasons and causes to poverty which some people say it is due to adequate lack of resources on a global level such as land, food , shelter, building materials in order to survive while other believe it is because of uneven distribution of resources around the world. Overall, there are many causes to poverty which is caused from political, social and economic factors in which some vital causes are mentioned below are on resource exploitation, indebtedness and structural adjustment, corruption, and overpopulation.…

    • 2463 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Poverty in America

    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages

    There is two main types of poverty, absolute poverty, and relative poverty. Absolute poverty is when a house hold takes in less than one U.S. dollar a day, meaning that they will not be able to buy food nor be able to buy the medicine they need to survive, and will most likely have poor clothing and a poor living environment. One of the best ways we can help with the absolute poverty would be to encourage and support the development of effective businesses (small, medium, and large) to make good use of our natural resources to create wealth and jobs for the people living in absolute poverty. Now for Relative poverty, it happens when a person has a little bit of money but otherwise the quality of the person’s life is not very good. For example, not having access to affordable social services like schooling, health care, medicines, sanitation, transportation, or even safe drinking water. A way we can help out people facing relative poverty is to make sure that people have access to affordable and good quality social services. Where they can feel secure and safe around their peers and can trust people.…

    • 1102 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Participatory Governance

    • 3046 Words
    • 13 Pages

    out by Merilee S. Grindle on Good Enough Governance suggests that lack of progress on…

    • 3046 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Best Essays