Outline

Introduction

Poverty is defined as “the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions”; destitution is “extreme poverty that threatens life itself through starvation or exposure.” The astute reader will realize at the outset that usual or socially acceptable are rather vague terms. While these terms imply that poverty is a relative (that is, depends on the levels of other variables) concept, destitution causes one to think that it is an absolute (that is, it is fixed in terms of a known standard) measure.

Discussion

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median income of families ...