Beyond Poverty

Abstract

Poverty is often defined as lacking the financial resources to meet a defined set of needs. The stated level of financial resources is taken to define a poverty line. Accordingly, the clear policy response to poverty is to raise the incomes of those who fall below such a line. In this paper, drawing on the capability approach, I argue that this approach is limited in two related ways, and it is necessary to move "beyond poverty" both in a conceptual and a policy sense. First, it is rarely if ever the case that a particular level of financial resources is necessary or sufficient to meet a set of needs, as other factors also act as critical inputs. Second, to bring people over the threshold set of needs, policies that do not raise income, such as the provision of collective goods, will often be more effective in the long term than income transfers. Nevertheless, in the short-term raising incomes will often be the easiest and most available strategy and hence there is also reason to retain the concept of poverty and related policies.