The poverty threshold, or poverty line, is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a given country. In practice, like the definition of poverty, the official or common understanding of the poverty line is significantly higher in developed countries than in developing countries.
The common international poverty line has in the past been roughly $1 a day. In 2008, the World Bank came out with a revised figure of $1.25 at 2005 purchasing-power parity (PPP).
Determining the poverty line is usually done by finding the total cost of all the essential resources that an average human adult consumes in one year. The largest of these expenses is typically the rent required to live in an apartment, so historically, economists have paid particular attention to the real estate market and housing prices as a strong poverty line affector.
Individual factors are often used to account for various circumstances, such as whether one is a parent, elderly, a child, married, etc. The poverty threshold may be adjusted annually.
Read more about Poverty Threshold: Absolute Poverty, Relative Poverty, Basic Needs, National Poverty Lines, Criticisms
Famous quotes containing the words poverty and/or threshold:
“For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
—Bible: New Testament, Mark 12:44.
Jesus watching the widow contribute her two mites.
“I had a good talk with Alcott this afternoon. He is certainly the youngest man of his age we have seen,—just on the threshold of life. When I looked at his gray hairs, his conversation sounded pathetic; but I looked again, and they reminded me of the gray dawn.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)