By Kathryn Hazelett<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nearly 225,000 families live below the poverty line in Arkansas and Mississippi.[1]<\/a> While we hear and talk about poverty a lot, we\u2019re not always talking the same language. This is the first post in a series looking at how we define poverty, how we talk about it, how we think about it, and how we measure it. Let\u2019s start with a definition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When I was a kid, we had a set of encyclopedias that lived in\nthe hallway between my room and my sister\u2019s room. I remember them being full of\ninformation on every topic. It was the 1980\u2019s version of the internet, but\nwithout spellcheck and trolls. Sometimes, I still hop over to the internet\nversion of this analog resource for basic facts. That\u2019s what I did today, and\nhere\u2019s what Encyclopedia Britannica<\/a> had to say about\npoverty: \u201c[It] is said to exist when people lack the means to satisfy their\nbasic needs.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Don\u2019t you love it when a definition leaves you with more\nquestions after you\u2019ve looked it up? <\/p>\n\n\n\n My main question\nis: what are basic needs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I\u2019ve been teaching my daughter the value of money, we\u2019ve\nbeen talking about needs vs. wants. She takes care of the things that she wants\nfor herself with her allowance (and tooth fairy money) and I handle her needs \u2013\nin our family, this is everything from healthy meals and doctor visits to safe\nhousing and transportation to school supplies and presents for friends\u2019\nbirthday parties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s where things can get fuzzy. How do we determine which\nneeds are basic needs? Are schools supplies a basic need? The modern equivalent\nof encyclopedias? What about a present for a friend when you\u2019ve been invited to\na party? Is being safe a basic need?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The general view is that we only NEED<\/a> the following\nthings to survive \u2013 that these comprise our basic needs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n School supplies definitely don\u2019t fit within any of these categories, but does my daughter need her school supplies? Will there be crayons and pencils for her if she doesn\u2019t bring them? What will her schoolmates think if she doesn\u2019t have an eraser or she doesn\u2019t bring a backpack? Will she be teased? Left out? Made to feel \"other?\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n While needs vs basic needs can appear to be clear cut when\nwe\u2019re making a list of them, in real life, it\u2019s much more difficult. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Defining poverty as lacking the means to satisfy our basic\nneeds gives us a very barebones definition. If a family only has the means to\nsatisfy their basic needs, so many needs are left unfulfilled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n