Poverty Defined
This specific term describes a severe lack of basic resources like food, clean water, and shelter, where income is insufficient to obtain the minimum needed to survive.
What is absolute poverty?
In 1964, this U.S. President marshaled the forces of the federal government to officially launch a national legislative initiative known as the "War on Poverty".
Who is Lyndon B. Johnson?
This international organization sets the global poverty line, tracks extreme poverty worldwide, and works to foster global economic development.
What is the World Bank?
This term describes the condition of a household that does not have consistent, reliable access to enough nutritious food for an active, healthy life.
What is food insecurity?
This baseline sociological term refers to the state or condition of lacking a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence.
What is homelessness?
This form of poverty occurs when an individual's income is significantly less than the average income of their surrounding society, even if their basic survival needs are met.
What is relative poverty?
This major 1930s economic catastrophe is the primary event that triggered the federal creation of the Social Security program.
What is the Great Depression?
This term describes a situation where impoverished individuals are trapped in a cycle of borrowing money at exorbitant interest rates, which prevents them from building wealth.
What is a debt trap?
This self-reinforcing socio-economic cycle occurs when poverty restricts access to quality education, which in turn limits job opportunities and keeps a person low-income.
What is the cycle of poverty?
This specific type of homelessness describes individuals who have been continuously homeless for a year or more, or have experienced at least four episodes of homelessness in the past three years.
What is chronic homelessness?
This annual numeric measurement is released by government bodies to determine if a family's income and resources fall below what is necessary to cover essential costs of living.
What is the poverty line (or poverty threshold)?
This 1601 English legislation established the early framework for government-funded public assistance and heavily influenced future American welfare policies.
What is the Elizabethan Poor Law?
"No Poverty" serves as the very first objective listed within this massive 2030 framework established by the United Nations.
What are the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)?
This specific term refers to a demographic shift where women and female-headed households represent a disproportionately large percentage of the global poor.
What is the feminization of poverty?
According to Conflict Theory in sociology, economic inequality persists primarily because this powerful social group is willing to exploit others to protect their resources.
Who are the bourgeoisie (or the ruling class)?
This statistical graph, named after an American economist, is used in macroeconomics to visually represent income inequality within a population.
What is the Lorenz curve?
This means-tested, federally funded U.S. public assistance program was established in 1965 to provide vital healthcare coverage to low-income individuals.
What is Medicaid?
Globally, this specific demographic group accounts for roughly half of the world's population living in extreme poverty.
Who are children?
This type of unemployment occurs naturally when workers are temporarily between jobs, looking for their first job, or transitioning into a new career field.
What is frictional unemployment?
This economic term describes individuals who maintain full-time or regular employment but still do not earn enough wages to rise above the poverty line.
Who are the working poor?
This specific term refers to a state where an individual or family earns less than 50% of the official poverty threshold, making it mathematically difficult to escape even if income is doubled.
What is deep poverty?
This landmark 1938 U.S. labor law regulated child labor, established a 40-hour workweek, and created the nation's very first federal minimum wage.
What is the Fair Labor Standards Act?
This global coalition of civil society organizations, represented by a "White Band" logo, operates internationally to end world poverty.
What is the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP)?
In sociological terms, this is the belief that events are predetermined and that individuals have no power to change their economic circumstances, a mindset often reinforced by chronic poverty.
What is fatalism?
This ideal social system allows people to move fluidly between different socioeconomic classes based entirely on their own merit and individual effort.
What is an open-class system?