Topic: Is poverty a lack of money? - page 13. (Read 1603 times)

I think it depends. You can have the means to purchase the basics of life but you may be deficient in other areas like a knowledge in a particular field or thing and due to this absence, can cause you to make decisions that can be costly.

I believe the Op meant that money is not the only thing when lacking that can be defined as being poor. To me, too little knowledge of anything can be dangerous and can be seen as poverty.

Technically no, Since you will just need money based your needs. But we have different measures on our personal necessities. Some people might need food and water only but others can’t live without internet and other luxury things.

Poverty is when you don’t have enough source of personal necessities. So if you have a farm or you live were everything is available for free then that can’t be considered poverty since you are not having a tough life. Money is not the measurements of poverty but the status of living of someone’s life.

There are many definitions of poverty and everyone is different. But maybe we will agree that the definition of poverty is a condition where a person cannot meet his needs and does not have the money to buy them. The necessities of life here include the primary needs for survival so they must need help from others.

Compared to yesterday's Covid-19 lockdown, people can still buy something, but their movements are limited, so they use technology to order food. And it is not categorized as poverty. But some families find it difficult to buy food because they can't afford it and don't have the money, either by going alone or ordering online. And finally, many of them died.

So if someone has nothing to buy something to survive and can't do anything about it, maybe that belongs to poverty.

Thank you for your response @Nwada001 but seems to misunderstand my question. We must strive to make money because money is important to provide for our needs as you mentioned. There are places where you don't need money for medical bills, school fees, and transportation. They rely on traditional medicine, education, and more of transportation. I know places that still use horses, donkeys, and camels for transportation. You may need money to take care of these needs but many people don't need money to satisfy these needs. There are also many modern societies where education, healthcare, and transportation are free, so you don't need money to satisfy them.

Basic needs are food, water, shelter, and clothing. Others will include healthcare, education, and others. My question was that if you need money to satisfy your needs and you have the money, you perceive not poor. And if you can satisfy these without money, you are also rich. So a man that earns money in New York to satisfy his needs and a man that owns a large farm in a rural area of South America to satisfy his needs are just the same. Money shouldn't be a determinant factor to classify people as poor or rich. I don't need to eat in restaurants to satisfy my hunger because there are none in some areas.

Poverty is not just a lack of resources; it is also a lack of education and awareness of financial matters. A sort of poverty is having an incorrect outlook on life and not understanding what to do with money. Being poor displays a bad mindset and a lack of understanding, which can cause resource mismanagement and lead to become even poorer when presented with possibilities. Every person receives several opportunities from life and the universe throughout their lives, yet many people lack the skills to recognize and take advantage of these opportunities maybe due to environment or their upbringing.

According to William BrownWilliam Brown: Poverty is the state of being poor; that is, lacking the basic needs of life such as food, health, education, and shelter. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199670840.001.0001/acref-9780199670840-e-1716

Poverty refers to the lack of adequate financial resources such that individuals, households, and entire communities don't have the means to subsist or acquire the basic necessities for a flourishing life. This means being so poor as to struggle to obtain food, clothing, shelter, and medicines. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/poverty.asp%23:~:text%3DPoverty%2520refers%2520to%2520the%2520lack,clothing%252C%2520shelter%252C%2520and%2520medicines.&ved=2ahUKEwi3l7KM3ML_AhXDnFwKHTexAy4QFnoECBEQBQ&usg=AOvVaw3yS3yYncpJTsc1jl-xsTFg

In the two definitional context above you can see it all points to same things and criteria that could be said of a person to be poor in the absence or inability of the person to provide for himself and family such needs. But unfortunately today, celebrity lifestyle and the quest for man to acquire and accumulate wealth has increasingly made it difficult to agree that anyone who can only adequately afford shelter, clothes, food and health is not still poor.
The desire to obtain and acquire ostentatious valuables has made even those that can only afford the basic needs of life to still think themselves poor, and this idea has led to ingratitude in today's society among humans.

The generally accepted concept is that poverty is a condition associated mainly with the inability to meet financial needs.  But by going deeper into the studies of many cases, this concept expanded to also include people who are unable to pay their needs due to misbehavior and lack of experience, despite their ability to obtain funds.  This last concept includes especially employees with a fixed monthly income who cannot achieve a balance between income and expenses.

In a setting where money is useless and not required, money no longer is the criteria to be tagged either rich or poor. If there is everything that you need  available like food etc. The rich and poor will then be determined by the quantity of food they have. Rich and poor is determined by the quantity of the resources you have. In some ancient African cultures where agriculture is a major practice and planting of yams and rearing goats is the major products, the man who has the largest yam barns and goats is usually called the richest. So if money is not needed, there will still be rich and poor people which will now depend on the amount of resources they have.

Poverty has many meanings, it all depends on what aspect it is aimed at. Because in my opinion poverty means a lack of an aspect or situation. So if poverty is aimed at the financial aspect, it is certain that that comes to mind, lack of money or lack of necessities of life. So if there are people whose lives are short of money, and their needs are not fulfilled, you could say that person is financially poor. But if there are people who don't have money, but whose needs are fulfilled, I don't think that person can be called a poor person. Because if a person's needs are fulfilled, even though the finances are not too much, his life can be said to be quite decent.

But if you talk about something deeper like happiness, financial aspects or needs, sometimes for some people it's not that important to always be there. Because people like that already talk about contentment. Because if in their life, their hearts always feel satisfied and grateful, even if not with money, or with having all their needs fulfilled, for them with that they already feel rich and have enough. So in conclusion, poverty when viewed from all existing aspects, it all depends on the person who interprets it.

In my opinion, a poor person is a person who has money or possessions, but cannot meet all of his basic needs. Or in other words, the poor can only meet half of their basic needs. And what you mentioned food on the farm also costs money and capital which suggests the person has lots of money to farm and is probably not quite poor.

The answer to this question can not be uniformly started since different individuals with their peculiar needs and wants and there is big difference between the two because needs is limited while want or desire is unlimited and this reflect on the life of those individuals,  some people starting point is another person ending steps what differentiate them is what their looking out for and the level of opportunities that their both exposed to.

Being content doesn't mean satisfaction and their different perspectives and wants,  and being rich or poor is a thing of the mind and not necessarily depend 100% on the money,  we have other vital factors.

I agree with your point. I'd like to also add that poverty should be considered when the means to be able to grow is extremely tough. Opportunity is low, living costs versus income are close and the ability to save is limited. I think that someone who has landed themselves as poor from bad decisions but have the ability to change if they worked hard enough, is not in poverty but rather just poor.


Maybe from a general society outlook you would be poor...but really, you can live. You are not poor in time. You are not poor in the sense of your fulfillment (as you have all that you need)...and if you live like this by choice, you probably aren't vein so you are probably not poor in your mind.

The short answer: Poor in terms of money? Maybe, the opinion is subjective. In poverty? Definitely not.

To me, poverty is when a person cannot afford the necessary things in life. Things like food, clean water, shelter, health care, and education. That's just one way to look at it.
Also, a person can be poor when they are living on less than $1.90 a day. That is the global poverty line. So if a person spends less than $1.90 on food, transportation, education, electricity, and other basic needs a day, he is considered to be poor. I prefer this version better because even if you don't spend money n the things you see a day like the example you gave on people leaving on a farm, those things can still be valued with money. The fruits and vegetables can be valued as money. so if the value of everything they spend a day is less than $1.90 then they are poor.

Those are the attributes of poverty
Deep down, if you don't have money to provide for those basic needs then its assume you are poor, a poor man doesn't only ends of not being able to provide for his family, but seeing what to do with money and can't initiate the move to do it is also poverty. Let say for instance, you are passing by the road side along the line you are hungry whereby a restaurants is close by but since you aren't able to afford what it takes to go their and have some plate of food are also considered being poor.
@Nwada001 explained to you, money is mostly needed in all ways of life.

Do you know that life is beyond what we eat, where we live, and how our family feeds? Those might be the essential reasons why we strive so hard to earn a living, and just because those things are available, that does not mean we are going to stop trying to make money because medical bills, children's school fees, transportation, clothing, upgrading to the modern generation, fitting in ecological changes—all those things require money, and if we just see poverty as not being able to feed the family, then we are wrong.

But if everything that one needs to survive is readily available for him and all expenses, both present and those to arise in the future, can be settled, then such a person is no longer poor but is living an average life.

Do you know that to get everything you need money and without money you get nothing..
Lemme just clarify you on the power of money, Money gives confidence, Hope and peace of Mind, Money makes you revived even though you are ill whenever you receive some certain amount the Joy alone makes you 20 percent revived from the illness. Just as the Igbo's does whenever they are sick just mentioned some certain amount of money as gift to them you would see how effectively they will recover from their illness. In addition, without money you are stocked in a place without moving from that region, so money is 80 to 96 percent of man's existence after the breath. So, When we talk of poverty is refers to as man not having money in all ramification of life.

Poverty refers to lack of money that's how everybody sees it,  however living far from the city having your own farm and have the ability to feed and provide shelter for your family, that wouldn't be considered living under poverty level.
There has been a lot of things to consider in determining who's living under poverty or not, one of the primary reason is the unemployment and lacking of ability to generate money consistently.
I guess being poor in the city is much harder than being poor in the rural areas where you can plant crops and vegetables and raise livestocks as well.  

According to Investopedia,


That's hard to say because "need" is subjective. A person can be poor and content, but anything less than the minimum needed just to survive would probably be considered poor by anyone's measure.

Did you know that some people are just average, they can not afford all that they need and they are not even planning to afford all because not all needs are necessary.

Just like you said, someone that is living agrarian live in a way they are cultivating land for crop planting and rearing animals. These kind of people may not need anything. It can not be said that they are poor too.

To be poor means a person that can not afford to eat three good meals per day, not having good cloths and shelter. If you see them, you will know that they are poor in the kind of environment they are living, the food they are eating. Did you know that some people will borrow to eat or depend on someone? Some people can not afford to send their child to school. If someone can not meetup with the basic needs of life, the person is poor. It is not about if the person is agrarian or living in a well developed city.

Speaking of poverty is a lot of context and depends on how your perspective or point of view is now to conclude it in the discussion. I think this discussion will only be related to human dissatisfaction and greed and spinning to things that we often encounter in every discussion about the economy and poverty in this forum and I think it will also spin around the same conclusion.

Poverty is not seen from the amount of money you have, I can consider the person in your story to be a rich person, because you can enjoy life without thinking about having money or not, and or without thinking tomorrow is because he has life and awareness of thinking From its perspective.
Someone will make it poor and still need money, someone thinks the same as me.

With the meaning everyone has his views, but will refer to the same discussion pattern, are you not bored?