I wrote this paper for my macroeconomics class last month. I just wanted
to share it to see what you guys think about it.

There are two kinds of poverty; absolute poverty which is the
inability to afford minimal requirements necessary to sustain a
reasonably healthy existence (a person doesn’t have enough for adequate,
food, clothing, and shelter)- life threatening. And relative poverty
which is an economic position with regard to the living of the majority
in any given society (low income and standard of living compared to
others). This is more difficult to define because it is based on
cultural ideas about quality of life in a society.
The U.S. government defines the official poverty level as the estimated
cost of food multiplied by three. A family with less income than this
minimum budget would be considered to be in poverty. The U.S. government
estimates, therefore, for a family of four would be approximately
$17,500 per year and for a single person approximately $10,000 per year.
Poverty is a status quo that limits the free will of an individual as
part of a society. For instance, Ecuador, South America, my country, is
a country extremely rich in natural resources, yet the wealth it’s not
well distributed among the population. Roughly, 5% of the population is
considered rich, 65% is considered middle class, and 30% is considered
poor. However, the interesting thing is that the 5% which is rich is
getting richer, the middle class is disappearing, and the poor are
getting poorer. Making an international analysis of Ecuador’s situation,
which is similar to other “developing countries,” we can see that the
biggest economies of the world use their power to impede the growth of
smaller economies. As an example, the biggest countries buy raw material
from Ecuador paying nominal prices, using a moderate term, then they
process it, and turn it into final product, and they sell those final
products back at outrageous prices. Therefore, they keep our economies
in general poverty.
As a consequence of the corruption of our own governments and the
unfair international trade policies, we have in our countries children
dying due to illness that people in U.S. and Europe haven’t even heard
because they were extinguished decades ago, children below normal
learning level due to nutritional deficit, professionals fleeing the
country to go to Europe as farm workers or maids or to go to USA as
illegal aliens working for less than $4 an hour. This is real and
extreme poverty, and not the statistical analysis from UN, OAS, or World
Bank.
Poverty has two causes, first of all the actual individual who closes
his mind into a sense of resignation, fatalism, powerless, and
passivity. Low aspirations match lack of opportunities, and therefore, a
feeling of inferiority is created in which the individual blames the
society for his state of poverty. All this combined enclose the
individual into a cycle that doesn’t allow him to get out of his misery.
The second cause are the governments which have the power to create new
jobs, to regulate the interest, to control the money exchange value in
order to make the economy more bearable. They don’t do it because they
respond to higher interests and not to the people who elected them.
Furthermore, due to the extreme pressure of the big economies of the
world our governments have to accept the imposed policies because if
they don’t do so, there are going to be trading sanctions. Once again
all these combined keep our economies in a constant fluctuation between
recession and inflation which does not have an ending..
My apology for diverting from the US economy focus, but the question
was what is my definition of poverty, and this is what I have
experienced.

Not bad at all. I presume you have the source citing left out of the
version we're reading. Because the teachers around here, at least, will
rip into you for that one.

actually i had just one source which is an official source.
Basically the definitions.
BUt about 75% of the paper is my own opinion
if u need it let me know and i'll posted for u

Oh, no- I already know this stuff. The statistical numbers, I didn't
know. But I knew the general trends. And methodology.

cool