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Poverty is a bit of a confusing definition to nail, but the numbers, as they stand now, all at least provide some understanding of how poor some people can get.
According to Development Initiatives, an organization that aims to empower sustainable solutions for world problems by means of data, there are three poverty lines that most agree on: the official one, which is living on less than $1.90 a day, and the two that many argue are more representative given the higher cost of living in more developed parts of the world, i.e. $3.20 and $5.50.
For context, there are nearly 700 million people (9% of the world’s population) who live on less than $1.90 a day. The number increases drastically when you consider that nearly 3.3 billion people live below the $5.50 a day threshold (pst, there are over 8 billion people on the planet, you can do the math).
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Bored Panda got in touch with Reddit user u/100AltruisticInside who shared some of his personal insights into having grown up in a financially struggling family. Altruist explained that he was one of three kids with both parents and grandma living under one roof. “Let's just say I had to live with hand-me-downs from my two brothers for years and family vacation really happened maybe once every three or so years and even that was to visit relatives,” he added.
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An article by Oro Wealth explains how poverty can be a positive experience, listing how it can teach people to be resourceful, how it fosters empathy, and helps people understand just how resilient they are. This is besides learning how to manage money properly and understanding that you don’t need much to be happy.
However, Altruistic points out that it does come at a cost: “Sure, people can be resourceful and use whatever they have lying around the house to fix and build stuff, but having grown up always hearing we can't afford this and that, it follows you into adulthood. Suddenly you understand just one hospital visit can set you back miles financially while your budget is minimum wage. So you go through life living with that constant fear and anxiety of not having enough to basically live, it’s exhausting even if you are crafty enough or if you become well-off later on.”
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Altruistic gave us a little insight into how his family got by and from whom he actually learned the ropes:
“[I learned it from my] parents and grandma, she lived with us until her passing a while back. Mom and grandma would always notice and talk about prices at the store, you can say discounts determined what we ate for the day/week. Grandma mostly cooked and always used whatever we had first and only ever needed to go get something from the store once we were all out. Takeout was never an option, [stuff] like that.”
“Dad worked at an assembly line, pretty much learned how to fix the car and anything else around the house with whatever spare stuff he’d find at work that nobody needed. You quickly get into that kind of mentality when you experience it every day.”