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Poverty, wealth and inequality

Economic changes

Wealth in the World

Poverty and Indigence

How is poverty measured?

Societies of waste

According to the Human Development Report of the United Nations Program, inequality in the world has increased markedly in recent years. It is important to review what has happened in recent decades at the level of the world economy. One of the factors that determine the gaps between poor and rich countries is the difficulty of having some nations to pay their external debts because of inflation and unemployment increased. Countries such as the United States and Great Britain raised large increases in interest rates.

The gap between rich and poor has deepened in the midst of globalization. There is more inequality between countries and also within them. The richest countries, which form the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), concentrate an overwhelming proportion of technology, capitals, markets and industrial production.

In the world there is great poverty. Poverty can be recognized immediately, but it is not easy to define it. Poverty

•It is a situation that prevents a person or a household from satisfying their basic needs in housing, nutrition, employment, education and health.

The poverty line has been defined in one dollar a day per person. That means that with that value a person has only minimal survival conditions. In poor countries, 1.3 billion people live on less than a dollar a day. The United Nations included data on the population with a life expectancy of less than 40 years: illiterates, people without access to health services and drinking water, malnourished children less than 5 years of age.

The main cause of poverty and the concentration of world wealth is the inequality of opportunities for people in poor countries to access the knowledge society. The benefits of scientific and technological progress, such as the Internet, do not reach the population of the South. Thus, the poor end up being victims of sub-consumption, while the rich are of the consumer waste.