The Human Side of Poverty Alleviation

Poverty shouldn’t be a controversial subject, but it is. The World Bank, the World Health Organization, the U.S. State Department and pretty much every government in the world has a different definition of what poverty means. In China, absolute poverty is defined as 11 yuan a day; this is about $1.7. The World Bank disagrees and sets a higher number. In 2011 the U.S. considered people to be in poverty if their consumption was less than $21.7 a day. If that were the case, given inflation, almost all Chinese people outside of a few large cities would be in poverty. But living in China is different.

China doesn’t claim poverty eradication; it boasts a poverty alleviation program. The aim