A topic that is always current, in that it is a problem that will never be truly eradicated, is that of poverty. In the United States, almost 13 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. This information, and my interest in the subject, helped me form three questions. What is poverty? How do people enter poverty? And what is being done to combat it?
             According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Poverty is said to exist when people lack the means to satisfy their basic needs." Using this definition, one must find out what these basic needs of humans are. The narrowest determination of these needs would only put the starving, and people dying from exposure at the poverty line because their basic needs keep them alive, and since they lack these needs, they are in poverty. However, a broader definition of these needs is "those [needs] reflecting the prevailing standards of living in the community." This definition measures the people deemed to be impoverished against other people in the population as a whole. A problem, besides the definition of needs, which comes up in defining poverty is that of the non-economic factors that have been associated with poverty. Among these are: "poor health, low levels of education or skills, an inability or an unwillingness to work, high rates of disruptive or disorderly behaviour, and improvidence."
             Poverty has also been separated into different types temporally and based on distribution. The types based on time are short-term, long-term and cyclical. Based on distribution, the types are widespread, concentrated and individual. Short-term poverty is caused mainly by loss of job, major injury, or bad investments. Short-term poverty can become long-term if the person who has become impoverished does nothing, or is unsuccessful in attempts, to remedy the situation. Long-term poverty is often the result of disability, being born into a destitute situation, or one...