One of the greatest reasons for needing a lose term such as “need” to help conceive of poverty is the radical differences in standard of living that occur between the continents and even among the poor themselves. D. L. Mundy in his ground breaking book, Christianity and Economic Problems wrote:

Even ‘the poorest he’ in the highly industrialized countries expects a standard of living unprecedented in earlier ages. He lives longer, he has access to educational and medical facilities, he has better clothes, a more solid and warmer house (even if it be a slum), more leisure from work, less sheerly [sic] back-breaking labor when at work, a dependable food supply, and opportunities to enjoy those luxuries of modern civilization in the form of tobacco, films and daily papers, which tend to be regarded as necessities, and no longer luxuries, though the mass of human kind have managed to live fairly satisfactory lives without knowing them or caring for them.[1]

The 2012 Poverty Guidelines Federal Register Notice from the United States Department of Health and Human Services based on the Census Bureau’s official poverty thresholds records the poverty line for a family consisting of four people, presumably two adults and two children, living in the lower forty-eight states to be at $23,050; higher in both Alaska and Hawaii.[2] This breaks down to roughly $15.80 per person, per day to live at the poverty line in the United States. The breakdown is higher for single adults living on their own assuming they are not able to share the expenses of shelter and basic utilities. The World Bank standard for the world poverty line around $1.25 per person per day.[3] The poverty line for the United States is roughly twelve times higher than the world poverty line. Incidentally the world poverty line put forth by the World Bank does not take into account large industrialized nations such as the United States, Canada, and Australia in its findings.  The conclusion is that the cost of living or at least the standard of living is higher in the United States and other industrialized nations than it is in third world countries.

D. L. Munby stated; luxuries of modern civilization have come to be counted on as necessities.[4]  Some such luxuries would include processed foods which increase the cost of food in the super market, stricter food laws that prevent markets from selling out of date products, utilities such as electricity, water and the sewer/ septic systems that are standard in America,  rigorous building codes, the cost of transportation, child care, etc.  All of these factors indicate a higher standard and therefore cost of living in the United States.

Though the United States Census Bureau attempts to put a figure on the cost of living it is difficult for any national organization to really address the specific issues of poverty in a region. Individual issues often complicate the poverty issue. Attitudes such as depression or culturally ingrained mindsets prevent people from reaching their full economic potential. Issues such as a gambling addiction, drug addiction, alcohol addiction and others are localized situations that keep individuals poor and cannot be addressed or even fully realized through suggesting  a poverty line. Ultimately the matter of poverty has to be addressed on a local and individualized level.[5]

[5] Jay Wesley Richards. Money, Greed, and God, (New York: HarperOne, 2009), 50-51.

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