Extreme poverty is defined as a state of poverty in which individuals cannot fulfil one or more of their basic needs (food, shelter and clothing).
More recently, neoliberal definitions have been adopted by international organisations such as the World Bank or the UN, setting extreme poverty at an income below 2 US dollars a day. While the purpose of this international standard is meant to be able to derive statistics, it does not reflect local purchasing power and it has also been used by capitalist organisations to claim that poverty is diminishing thanks to their system by simply changing the cutoff point.[1]
References
- ↑ “The [World] bank claims that the new poverty line is roughly equivalent to the old line, in real terms. But in effect it is actually significantly lower, and therefore makes it seem as though there are fewer poor people than before.
This is why the bank has suddenly announced that the global poverty headcount has decreased by 100 million people overnight, and that the poverty reduction trend has been declining more rapidly than we used to believe.”
Jason Hickel (2015-11-01). "Could you live on $1.90 a day? That's the international poverty line" The Guardian.