Expert: Gina Boykin - 5/5/2009

Question
If you live on welfare and medicaid,does that mean that you are poor but you don't live under poor conditions?
Are low income and poor the same?
But what if you have more than what you need?
Plus you have the basic neccessities?
Does this make you poor?

Answer
In my personal opinion, being poor is the relationship between what you have and what you need to survive and be healthy.  There are many people who are content and believe they have more than enough to do the things in life that are most important to them and to take care of their families.  These people, in my opinion, are not poor, regardless of their income or job title.  However, if a family does not have enough to take care of basic necessities, this family is poor.

This is still all relative, though, when you compare the lifestyle of one country to another.  What is truly "necessary" can vary from person to person, and culture to culture.  Even different countries' governments have different amounts as the "poverty level". (You can find out what calculation the U.S. government uses by going to census.gov)  Being poor, or living in poverty can also be defined by other factors, such as life expectancy.  

Think about the fact that over 1 billion people live on less than $1 a day and half of the world lives on less than $2 a day.  This means that someone on welfare in the U.S. still has much, much more than 1/2 of the world...