What Poverty Is and What It Isn't

Poverty is not just you without resources. People sometimes say: “I know what it is to be poor: I was a student without any cash and had to struggle.” There is often a misperception that a person living in poverty is just you (a middle class Westerner) without money or assets. People remember when they were students living off their waitressing income and imagine that if they were parachuted into poverty in a rural village, they would be able to work through the challenges in some methodical way and make a plan to survive.