The poverty line in the U.S., for example, has nothing to do with the poverty line in India. It is a relative poverty line. It is reset from time to time but it is related to U.S. median income, so if I set that to be the absolute poverty line everyone in India would essentially be poor.
The minimum wage can play a vital role in lifting hard-working families above the poverty line.
We live in a country with a vast majority of people below the poverty line. Our natural resources are limited and getting scarcer.
There are large numbers of people in India below the poverty line; there are large numbers of people who lead a meager existence. They want to find a little escape from the hardships of life and come and watch something colorful and exciting and musical. Indian cinema provides that.
The Gujarat model laced with the Godhra stink is a model of hatred that has taken 2,000 lives, while the Congress model has given 83 flagship programmes and scores of people living below the poverty line have been brought under the Food Security Act.
Inflation is taking up the poverty line, and poverty is not just economic but defined by way of health and education.
At the current $5.15 an hour, the federal minimum wage has become a poverty wage. A full-time worker with one child lives below the official poverty line.
While easy to understand, the income-based poverty line has limitations. Specifically, the median monthly household income measures only income without considering assets.
Given the relativity concept, poverty cannot be eliminated. Indeed, an economic upturn with a broad improvement in household income does not guarantee a decrease in the size of the poor population, especially when the income growth of households below the poverty line is less promising than the overall.
We decided in the mid-1960s that all poor people are the same: they are all poor. We know they're poor because we have defined a poverty line, and they're all underneath it.
