Poverty in Thailand is not so much a problem of an increasing number of families being unable to provide for their most basic needs, as it is a problem of the huge difference in income between the upper 30 percent and the rest of the population. Thailand's impressive economic growth in the 1980s and 1990s has improved overall living conditions, but the benefits of this national affluence have not been distributed equitably.
As Thailand slowly shifted from an agrarian economy to an industrialized economy, economic resources were shifted to the industrial sector and huge demand for factory workers created huge differences in wage rates between farmers and factory workers.