Defining poverty

J.K. Rowling states, “Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression. It meets a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts that is something on which to pride yourself but poverty itself is romanticized by fools” (Rowling). Mrs. Rowling conveyed an exceptional point, poverty is commonly used and without consideration of what it truly means; for those that have grown up in poverty, it is not taken so lightly. As easily as the word is thrown around, poverty is multidimensional and involved. For many, the definition of poverty means an absence or shortage of money while to some people it can mean, “the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions” (Encyclopedia Britannica). Both of these definitions are considered correct but the word entails more than the latter definitions, poverty can have deeper meaning that extends to different aspects of human life; today we will look at how separate entities define poverty and build upon those definitions.

A family’s income and size is used ...