Definitions
Relative poverty
When we talk about poverty in today we rarely mean malnutrition or
the levels of squalor of previous centuries or even the hardships of the 1930s
before the advent of the welfare state. It is a relative concept. ‘Poor’ people
are those who are considerably worse off than the majority of the population –
a level of deprivation heavily out of line with the general living standards
enjoyed by the majority of the population in one of the most affluent countries
in the world.