Week 2 - Poverty + Inequality

What is trying to be done about poverty and inequality?

  • UN GSD Agenda 2030: “End poverty in all its forms everywhere” and “Reduce income inequality within and among countries” 💲

How do we define poverty?

  • Absolute poverty:absolute terms when the benchmark is constant across time and space.Tends to a certain basic level of income/ basket of goods/services ( adjusted to inflation) 💷

For example someone not being able to get any food at all and only drinking water, not meeting the needs on any scale 💦

  • Relative poverty: threshold to vary in relation to living standards of the average citizen 👤

For example in your country not being able to buy food and having to go to food banks may be absolute poverty or maybe only buying food and the bare necessities is relative poverty 🌾

How do we measure inequality?

  • Gini Coefficient, developed in 1912, ranges from 0 to 1 but is usually written as a percentage

  • Lorenz curve measures the actual distribution of income

For example the highest gini coefficient is South Africa at 63.0🇿🇦recorded in 2014, the higher the number the more inequality there is. Where as the lowest is Slovakia with 24.1 🇸🇰

What are the limitations of Gini Coefficient? 💰

  • Not an indicator of country’s wealth/income

  • May overstate income inequality/ inaccurate 🧧

  • It often uses GDP data which can be unreliable as it does not account for informal jobs, certain people may not pay their taxes 💲

Global Precariat

  1. Labour market security: adequate income earning opportunities stemming from the govt commitment to ‘full employment’ 👤

  2. Employment security: protection against arbitrary dismissal, regulation on hiring 👥

  3. Job security: ability/opportunity to retain niche employment plus barriers and skill discussion/ opportunities to ‘upward’ mobility (status and income) 🗣

  4. Work security: protection against accident/illness at work, regulations etc ☢

  5. Skill reproduction security: opportunity to gain skills through training and competencies 👨🏼‍🔬

  6. Income security: assurance of adequate wages/ minimum wage, wage indexation, social security, progressive tax 💸

  7. Representation security:possess a collective voice in labor market through independent trade unions/ right to strike 🪧

Key Words

State Sovereignty

Cannibal Capitalism

Globality

Globalisation

Poverty

Absolute poverty

Relative poverty

Heterogenous

Global precariat