ABSTRACT
This chapter considers debates around poverty and its measurement, explores the growth of poverty over the last two decades and summarizes evidence on its impact. Debate on the definitions, causes and effects of poverty is common and widespread. This reflects the fact that the term poverty to many people is not merely descriptive of a condition or a state of affairs but carries with it a imperative for action. Studies of the impact of poverty fall into two categories, statistical measures of indicators such as health, educational attainment, the level of debt and homelessness, for example, and qualitative studies which seek to gauge the experience of poverty on specific client groups or in the context of an issue. The National Insurance scheme distributed benefits over the life cycle although critics have argued that it failed to redistribute from rich to poor.
