Poverty
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Poverty is the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money.[1] Absolute poverty or destitution refers to being unable to afford basic human needs, such as clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter.[2] About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live in absolute poverty today. Relative poverty refers to the lacking a usual or socially acceptable level of resources or income as compared with others within a society or country.[1]
For most of history poverty had been mostly accepted as inevitable as traditional modes of production were insufficient to give an entire population a comfortable standard of living.[1][3] After the industrial revolution, mass production in factories made wealth increasingly more inexpensive and accessible. Of more importance is the modernization of agriculture, such as fertilizers, in order to provide enough yield to feed the population. Additionally, this is called the core of the antipoverty effort as three quarters of the poor today are farmers. [4][5] Today, poverty reduction is a major goal and issue for many international organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank.
