What is poverty?

Since Oxfam began in 1942, it has worked with people experiencing poverty. But what does that mean?

Poverty is when a person does not have enough to meet their basic needs. This means they can’t live a healthy, safe and connected life because they don’t have enough resources.

Money is often the main resource that people experiencing poverty don’t have. Without it, people can’t access other resources such as food, health supplies, shelter and connections with other people.

Poverty is closely linked to inequality. It’s most likely to occur in societies with a big financial imbalance, where a small number of very rich people have most of the money.

There are a few ways that poverty can be measured. These can vary between organisations and countries.

One way that levels of world poverty are counted is by calculating how many people are living with less than $3 a day (around £2.20). This is the measurement used by the UN.

These people are considered to be living in poverty because $3 is not enough to ensure that daily needs, such as buying food, water or medicines, can be met.

Even when people fight to make their situation better and do everything they can to thrive, it’s not possible to access what we all need to survive. $3 per day is not enough to live the healthy, happy, safe life that we all deserve.

A similar calculation is used to work out the numbers of people living in what’s called ‘extreme poverty’, where even fewer of our basic needs can be met. People in extreme poverty have less than $1.90 to spend each day. This makes them vulnerable to illness, starvation and isolation.

Disasters and wars

People who live in countries that have been affected by disasters and wars are made much more vulnerable to poverty. Natural disasters (often caused by climate change) such as flooding, or conflicts where people are caught up in fighting, make it very difficult to have a safe and secure life.

Imagine needing to run away from your home because of a wildfire or fighting: this could mean losing everything you own and not having any money to recover or rebuild. This could lead to you experiencing poverty.

Illnesses

People who become unwell, sometimes from diseases that spread across an area and affect many people, can become affected by poverty. Being ill can make it impossible to work to earn money and can leave people disabled and less able to have the life they had before.

Lack of food

People who can’t get enough healthy food to keep them well are more at risk of poverty. A lack of food can be caused by weather changes or by shortages of food being brought into an area, sometimes because of conflict. The food that is left can cost a lot more money than usual, meaning people are forced to spend everything they have to survive.

Social status and discrimination

People can be rejected by others because of discrimination against them. This can happen because of their faith, race, gender, sexuality, age or other reasons – or a combination of these. People who find they are not accepted, or less accepted, because of these things can be forced towards poverty because society makes it hard for them to access what they need to thrive. This might include education, jobs or healthcare.

Political choices

Politicians and other powerful people could change the systems that make it harder for others to be better off, but they have chosen not to. Current rules allow some people to hold huge amounts of wealth and influence. This means power is not spread around more equally and some people are left with very little. System changes – like making people pay more tax when they get very rich – would rebalance this.

Oxfam and our partners are trying to tackle these causes so that we can all end poverty. It’s possible – but it needs big changes from the people who make decisions in our societies.

According to a report by the UN in 2024, some of the countries with the most people experiencing poverty included:

India

The UN found that India has some of the highest rates of extreme poverty. 234 million people (of a population of 1.4 billion) are affected. Factors such as unstable housing and limited access to electricity are some of the challenges.

It’s not a coincidence that India was also one of the countries most affected by the British Empire. Much wealth and resources were taken from India during and after it was colonised – and it is still impacted by this today.

Some people in India are thriving and hold more than their fair share of resources (such as money and influence). The imbalance between these rich, powerful few and everyone else is an example of inequality.

Ethiopia

86 million people experienced poverty in Ethiopia in 2024. Over time, the country had succeeded in reducing the number of people exposed to poverty, but in 2020, like so many countries, Ethiopian people were impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Lots of people were in lockdown and unable to work.

Since then, it’s been hard to restore earnings, leaving more people worse off and unable to buy food and other essentials. Ethiopia has also seen repeated conflicts including a civil war, and climate change has led to extreme weather which mean that food hasn’t grown.

This is a good example of how often poverty is caused by not one but several interlocking problems.

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

The DRC is rich in natural resources but has been affected by conflicts and flooding in recent years. In 2024, 66 million people in the country were living with poverty. Regional violence from armed groups and the floods forced over six million people to leave their homes in 2024. This is called displacement, and it leaves people at risk of poverty because they can quickly lose everything.

Zamuda Swayao Constance, leader of a women’s network farming project in South Kivu in the DRC, talked in 2024 about what it was like to experience poverty:

After the farming project, Zamuda said:

“This had an immensely positive impact on the health and well-being of our families, especially the young children who were getting proper nutrition to support their growth and development…

Undoubtedly there are thousands of other women across this nation trapped in the same deprivations we faced, who could hugely benefit from the multi-dimensional interventions that changed our lives here.”

Oxfam works with partners in over 80 countries to tackle poverty and the systems that cause it. It acts as part of the wider community of individuals, communities, activists, charities and other groups who know that poverty isn’t inevitable and want a more equal future.

This includes long-term project work led by local experts to cut the causes of poverty, as well as taking action in emergencies when a quick response is needed to limit the risk of people being left in poverty. Oxfam also talks to governments and powerful decision-makers to challenge them to change the rules that make poverty more likely.