Poverty – blame the poor or choose to help?

Within the modern era, the world has seen global poverty significantly decrease as a result of
strong continued economic growth. The average GDP growth internationally sat at around 4.5%
in the 1960s and 70s, a figure that has decreased to about 3-3.5% today (Fernald & Li 2019).
This economic growth has supported a significant decrease in poverty, wherein just the last thirty
years, the proportion of people living in poverty – the absolute poverty rate – has decreased by
over 75% to an estimated 736 million people globally today (UN 2021). Despite this, with
decreasing GDP growth comes the growing fear that poverty will only begin to spike again, and
with income inequality continuously increasing, will economic growth be a stable and powerful
enough force to alone alleviate poverty entirely? If economic policy change is not enough to
alleviate individuals from poverty, then what can we do about it? Is it the fault of the individuals
themselves?
In this essay it will be contended that poverty is fundamentally an economic issue, and reform to
the economic systems at both a global and domestic level can have a sufficient impact on
reducing poverty. Micro- and macro-economic policy reform by Governments have shown to
have a significant impact on decreasing poverty rates, by redistributing income to better support
their low-income citizens (Fane 2006). However, economic reform, as well as a variety of social,
political and environmental factors that hinder individuals’ ability to break out of the poverty
cycle, remain issues primarily outside the control of the individuals themselves. Hence, the
notion that poor people are responsible for their powerlessness is incorrect, as it ignores the
entrenchment of poverty as a systematic economic issue, facilitated by other social, political and
environmental factors outside of ones’ control.

Agreement on a single definition of poverty is difficult due to the vastly different circumstances
people live in across the world. In essence, it is inadequate access to some resources which are
debilitating to quality of life. Those who live in poverty are unable to meet basic survival needs,
including but not limited to food, healthcare, shelter and security. Experiences of this across the
world look very different, due to cost of living, the average quality of life, and other social,
political and economic factors. Having said that, there are two primary ways scholars attempt to
define poverty: in absolute terms, which is a level where household income is insufficient to
afford basic necessities, influenced by factors such as standard of living; and in relative terms, is
a chosen proportion of the population that is measurably poorer than the rest, ie the bottom 20%
of income-earners. The different ways to measure poverty can paint a very different picture of its
experience across the globe, where, for example, the USA’s Federal Poverty Line is set at
$4,540pa per family member, or $12.4 per day, whereas the World Bank’s International poverty
line is set at $1.90 per day per family member, a significant difference in the classification of
poverty in absolute terms by a factor of 6 (Laderchi, Saith & Stewart 2003). An individual’s
experience of poverty in the USA earning less than $12.4 per day would obviously significantly
differ from an individual living in Yemen, for example, earning less than $1.90 per day, where
civil war and drought means they likely have a significantly greater inadequate access to certain
resources such as food, water and shelter than their American counterpart. These differences
must be considered when discussing poverty on a global scale and will be the foundational
argument for poverty being a situation outside of an indivuals control.
Similarly, agreement on a single definition of power is also difficult, but the underlying concept
of power is that it is the ability to control or influence the behaviours of others or the course of
events. While this definition is sufficient broadly, it is highly abstract and lacks an economic
perspective. Discussion of power in terms of poverty revolves around the ability – or rather lack
thereof – for one to improve their standard of living. In an absolute measure, this would be by
increasing one’s income to a level that allows them to adequately afford their needs for survival.
Powerlessness in the scope of poverty, therefore refers to the inability for an individual to
improve their standard of living, which can occur due to a variety of social, political and
economic factors that hinder an individual from achieving this. The notion that those in poverty
are responsible for their powerlessness presumes the notion that these hindering factors are
within an individuals’ control. It will be contended that this is not the case and that poverty
should not be considered on an individual level, but rather a systematic issue protruding at both
micro- and macro-economic levels as a consequence of economic policy and a variety of social,
political and environmental factors outside of an individual's control.
While there can be a series of factors contributing to an individual living in poverty such as
conflict, inadequate national infrastructure, poor economic opportunity, environmental factors or
poor policymaking, and individual choices, the underlying cause of this inadequate access is
ultimately an issue of economics. Poverty exists as a product of these circumstances – many of
which are out of one’s control - but greater access to fiscal resources would greatly increase
one’s chances to overcome these challenges. Hence, within the modern era of globalisation and
international cooperation, a large-scale effort has been made to reduce global poverty across the
globe, with some significant results. Global cooperation can largely be attributed to the decrease
from 63% global poverty rates in 1950 to 8.6% in 2018, the lowest recorded rate in human
history. However, poverty in the modern day is now primarily condensed within a small group of
low-income countries, often impacted by some of the aforementioned circumstances. While the
median poverty rate globally sits at around 3%, countries in Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan
Africa have up to 70% of their populations in poverty (Mueller & Techasunthornwat 2020).
In a technical paper on the relationship between GDP growth and reducing poverty, Roemer and
Gugerty provide strong evidence that the two are heavily interconnected. Using data averages
from over 40 poverty-stricken countries, the Harvard University paper states that when using a
relative poverty line set at the poorest 40% of the population, a ten per cent annual GDP growth
corresponds to a ten per cent annual individual GDP growth for those in poverty, and when using
a relative poverty line set at the poorest 20% of the population, the same ten per cent annual
GDP growth corresponds to a 9.21% individual GDP growth for the poorest 20% (Roemer &
Gugerty 2021).
Roemer and Gugerty also claim that this result is not unexpected. Economic growth within a
country will benefit all citizens of a country, and hence, alleviate poverty, unless there was a
significant increase in income inequality within that same growth period. In this sense, the fact
that a 10% GDP growth increases individual GDP growth for the poorest 20% by 9.21% is quite
incredible, suggesting low levels any growth of income inequality overall in these countries, and
further evidencing the strong link between economic growth and alleviating poverty (Roemer &
Gugerty 2021).
Conflict is also a common driver for poverty across the world. War and conflict have a
multifaceted impact on those in poverty in both economic and other capacities, such as
environmental damage causing issues with food and water security, discrimination or persecution
of social groups, destruction of infrastructure or job opportunities, and mental health issues and
trauma.
In a 2020 paper, Chanon Techasuntbornwat produced a report for the World Bank attempting to
explain the macro-economic impact of domestic conflict, and its further impact on those in
poverty. In this paper, Techasuntboarnwat develops the idea of conflict debt, as a measurement
for the economic impact that war has within a domestic economy. While the specifics of the
conflict debt equation are complicated, it is formulated in such a way that past conflict debt is
accumulated with new conflict debt as a conflict continues in a country. One of the main findings
from this paper is that as a conflict continues to ravage a nation, poverty rates increase, but as
conflicts resolve, poverty rates decrease at a lagging rate, much slower than the initial spikes
(Mueller & Techasunthornwat 2020). This ultimately means that conflict has not only a strong
impact on creating poverty but resolving said conflict does not necessarily resolve the issues that
it has created for those in poverty. Hence, war and conflict are most certainly a driving factor for
poverty that is outside of an individual’s control.
Aside from economics, analysing poverty within a country such as Syria, which has been in civil
war for over a decade now, reveals the extent of the impact of conflict on poverty. The conflict
has ravaged the already arid lands of Syria, making agricultural output plummet, and increasing
food insecurity to 60% (Inskeep 2021). Moreover, studies related to the mental health of Syrians
and Syrian refugees have attributed the conflict to the aggravation of pre-existing mental health
conditions, creation of trauma within the conflict, and issues relating to stress and anxiety of
adapting to new lives in their refuge nations (Hassan et al. 2016; Selcuk & Rogers-Sirin 2021).
These issues have ultimately played a significant role in the major spike in poverty in Syria,
where the UN reports that 82.5% of Syrians live under the poverty line when only 11.4% of its
people were living in extreme poverty back in only 2004 (Inskeep 2021).
Environmental issues are also a common driving factor of poverty across the world. As climate
change continues to be a growing problem within society, multiple issues have arisen for people
who live in poverty that prevent them from escaping the cycle. Global warming has had a
significant impact on water scarcity and food security, which also have a greater impact on an
individual’s general economic opportunity. A study analysing the relationship between access to
groundwater and poverty in India found a strong correlation between the height of groundwater
in a community and the local poverty rates. Sekhri found that when measuring ‘accessible’
groundwater as within 8 meters of surface-level – chosen due to the physical limitations and
technological capabilities required to access water below this level – that communities without
accessible groundwater had a 9 to 10% higher poverty rate than those who did (Sekhri 2014).
This higher poverty rate in communities without accessible groundwater is primarily attributed to
agricultural capacity that these communities can facilitate, where food security is shown to be
strongly linked to groundwater level.
In conclusion, labelling poor people as somehow responsible for their poverty is naïve at best,
and blatantly ignorant at worst. While poverty is primarily an issue of economics, multiple
factors outside of economics act as a driving force of the poverty cycle. Those analysed in this
paper include the ways in which war and conflict exacerbate poverty through food and water
insecurity, mental health trauma and reduction in economic opportunities, and how climate
change exacerbates poverty through limiting agricultural output and food and water insecurity.
Although all individuals have some responsibility for the choices they make and the outcomes
that fall from those decisions, it would be ridiculous to place all the blame on those in poverty
for their situation when there are many greater factors involved that are outside of an individual’s
control.
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References

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