The
basic needs approach is one of the major approaches to the measurement of absolute poverty. It attempts to define the absolute minimum resources necessary for long-term physical well-being, usually in terms of
consumption goodsConsumption is a common concept in economics, and gives rise to derived concepts such as consumer debt. Generally consumption is defined by opposition to production. But the precise definition can vary because different schools of economists define production quite differently...
. The poverty line is then defined as the amount of
incomeIncome is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings...
required to satisfy those needs.
A traditional list of immediate "basic needs" is food (including water), shelter, and
clothingA feature of nearly all modern human societies is the wearing of clothing or clothes, a category encompassing a wide variety of materials that cover the body....
.
The
basic needs approach is one of the major approaches to the measurement of absolute poverty. It attempts to define the absolute minimum resources necessary for long-term physical well-being, usually in terms of
consumption goodsConsumption is a common concept in economics, and gives rise to derived concepts such as consumer debt. Generally consumption is defined by opposition to production. But the precise definition can vary because different schools of economists define production quite differently...
. The poverty line is then defined as the amount of
incomeIncome is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings...
required to satisfy those needs.
A traditional list of immediate "basic needs" is food (including water), shelter, and
clothingA feature of nearly all modern human societies is the wearing of clothing or clothes, a category encompassing a wide variety of materials that cover the body....
. Many modern lists emphasize the minimum level of consumption of 'basic needs' of not just
foodFood is any substance, usually composed of carbohydrates, fats, proteins and water, that can be eaten or drunk by an animal, including humans, for nutrition or pleasure. Items considered food may be sourced from plants, animals or other categories such as fungus or fermented products like alcohol...
,
waterWater is an ubiquitous chemical substance that is composed of hydrogen and oxygen and is essential for all known forms of life.In typical usage, water refers only to its liquid form or state, but the substance also has a solid state, ice, and a gaseous state, water vapor or steam. Water covers 71%...
, and shelter, but also
sanitationSanitation is the hygienic means of promoting health through prevention of human contact with the hazards of wastes. Hazards can be either physical, microbiological, biological or chemical agents of disease. Wastes that can cause health problems are human and animal feces, solid wastes, domestic...
,
educationEducation in its broadest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual...
, and healthcare. Different agencies use different lists.
Related approaches, taking their cue from the work of
Amartya SenAmartya Kumar Sen CH , is an Indian Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics-winning economist, and Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University. He is also a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge...
, focus on 'capabilities' rather than consumption.
In the
developmentEconomic development is the increase in the standard of living of a nation's population associated with sustained growth from a simple, low-income economy to a modern, high-income economy...
discourse, the basic needs model focuses on the measurement of what is believed to be an eradicable level of
povertyPoverty is the condition of lacking basic human needs such as nutrition, clean water, health care, clothing, and shelter because of the inability to afford them. This is also referred to as absolute poverty or destitution...
.
Development programsSocial development is a process which results in the transformation of social structures in a manner which improves the capacity of the society to fulfill its aspirations. Society develops by consciousness and social consciousness develops by organization. The process that is subconscious in the...
following the basic needs approach do not invest in
economically productiveProductivity is a measure of output from a production process, per unit of input. For example, labor productivity is typically measured as a ratio of output per labor-hour, an input. Productivity may be conceived of as a metric of the technical or engineering efficiency of production. As such, the...
activities that will help a
societySociety or human society is the manner or condition in which the members of a community live together for their mutual benefit. By extension, society denotes the people of a region or country, sometimes even the world, taken as a whole....
carry its own weight in the future, rather it focuses on allowing the society to consume just enough to rise above the poverty line and meet its basic needs. These programs focus more on subsistence than fairness. Nevertheless, in terms of "measurement", the basic needs or absolute approach is important. The 1995 world summit on social development in Copenhagen had, as one of its principal declarations that all nations of the world should develop measures of both absolute and relative poverty and should gear national policies to "eradicate absolute poverty by a target date specified by each country in its national context."
Canada
Professor Chris Sarlo, an
economistAn economist is an expert in the social science of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
at
Nipissing UniversityNipissing University is a small liberal arts university located in North Bay, Ontario, Canada, on a 720 acre farm site overlooking Lake Nipissing...
in North Bay, Canada and a senior fellow of the
Fraser InstituteThe Fraser Institute is a think tank based in Canada that espouses free market principles. Its stated mandate is to advocate for freedom and competitive markets. It generally opposes public policy solutions based on government spending, taxes, deficits, and regulation...
, uses
Statistics CanadaStatistics Canada is the Canadian federal government department commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture....
's socio-economic databases, particularly the
Survey of Household Spending to determine the cost of a list of household necessities. The list includes
foodFood is any substance, usually composed of carbohydrates, fats, proteins and water, that can be eaten or drunk by an animal, including humans, for nutrition or pleasure. Items considered food may be sourced from plants, animals or other categories such as fungus or fermented products like alcohol...
, shelter,
clothingA feature of nearly all modern human societies is the wearing of clothing or clothes, a category encompassing a wide variety of materials that cover the body....
,
health careHealth care , is the treatment and management of illness, and the preservation of health through services offered by the medical, dental, complementary and alternative medicine, pharmaceutical, clinical laboratory sciences , nursing, and allied health professions...
,
personal careHygiene, refers to the set of practices associated with the preservation of health and healthy living. Hygiene is a concept related to medicine, as well as to personal and professional care practices related to most aspects of living, although it is most often associated with cleanliness and...
,
essential furnishingsFurniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
, transportation and
communication Communication is a process of transferring information from one entity to another. Communication processes are sign-mediated interactions between at least two agents which share a repertoire of signs and semiotic rules. Communication is commonly defined as "the imparting or interchange of...
,
laundryLaundry is a noun that refers to the act of washing clothing and linens, the place where that washing is done, and/or that which needs to be, is being, or has been laundered.-Laundry:...
,
home insuranceHome insurance, also commonly called hazard insurance or homeowners insurance , is the type of property insurance that covers private homes...
, and miscellaneous; it assumes that education is provided freely to all residents of Canada. This is calculated for various communities across Canada and adjusted for family size. With this information, he determines the proportion of Canadian households that have insufficient income to afford those necessities. Since the early 1970s, the poverty rate has declined from about 12% of Canadian households to about 5%.
The Philippines
The Municipality of
Rosario, BatangasRosario is a 1st class municipality in the province of Batangas, Philippines. According to the latest census, it has a population of 95,785 people in 16,288 households....
,
PhilippinesThe Philippines officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
implemented its
Aksyon ng Bayan Rosario 2001 And BeyondThe Aksyon ng Bayan Rosario 2001 And Beyond Human and Ecological Security Plan was formulated by virtue of Executive Order No. 98-02 dated October 5, 1998 by then Mayor Rodolfo Guerra Villar of the Municipal Government of Rosario, Batangas in compliance with the principles of 1992 Earth Summit in...
Human and Ecological Security Plan using this concept as a core strategy through the
Minimum Basic Needs Approach to Improved Quality of Life - Community-Based Information System (MBN-CBIS) prescribed by the Philippine Government. This approach helped the municipal government identify priority families and communities for intervention, as well as rationalize the allocation of its social development funds.
United States
In the United States, the equivalent measures are called
self-sufficiency standards or
living income standards. Unlike the federal poverty level (FPL), which is calculated from a single, national variable (cost of food), these models assume that different households have different needs, based on factors such as the number and age of children in the household, and the cost of housing in the particular area (usually a county) that they live in. In keeping with the principles of basic needs, these measurements do not include any extra money for entertainment, savings, debt payment, or unusual or avoidable expenses, such as vehicle repairs. It assumes that adults will be working and pay taxes; it also includes costs of all government, charitable, and family subsidies, such as free medical care through
Medicaid Medicaid is the United States health program for eligible individuals and families with low incomes and resources. It is a means-tested program that is jointly funded by the states and federal government, and is managed by the states. Among the groups of people served by Medicaid are certain...
, free food from the USDA food stamps program or a
food bankA food bank is a non-profit organization distributing food stuffs donated by farmers and food processing companies to charitable organisations or non-profit agencies from warehouses. These food items are typically non-perishable goods, meat and fresh produce passed to non-profit welfare agencies...
, or free
childcareChildcare, child care, or babycare is the act of caring for and supervising children from 0-16 years of age....
from a grandparent. All of these costs are ignored by the official FPL measurement, but included in a self-sufficiency standard.
Minimum expenses vary by region. For housing, child care, food, transportation, health care, and other necessary expenses, plus net taxes, a family in middle-class
Warren CountyWarren County is a county located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. As of 2000, the population was 43,863. It was formed in 1800 from parts of Allegheny and Lycoming counties; attached to Crawford County until 1805 and then to Venango County until Warren was formally organized in 1819. Its county...
in northwestern
PennsylvaniaThe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania , often colloquially referred to as PA by natives and Northeasterners, is a state located in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States...
of one adult and two children (one preschooler, one school-aged) needed a minimum income of $30,269 to pay its own way in 2006. Child care is the largest expense in this budget, followed by housing, taxes, and food. The same family, living in the wealthy
Seattle regionKing County is located in the U.S. state of Washington. The population in the 2000 census was 1,737,034, and in 2009 was an estimated 1,909,300. By population, King is the largest county in Washington, and the 14th largest in the United States....
of
WashingtonWashington is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory which had been ceded by Britain in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty as settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute. It was admitted to the Union as the...
would need to earn $48,269 to be self-sufficient. These figures contrast sharply with the FPL for that year, which was just $16,600 for any three-person household.
See also
- Anthropological theories of value
Anthropological theories of value attempt to expand on the traditional theories of value used by economists or ethicists. They are often broader in scope than the theories of value of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, etc. usually including sociological, political,...
- Maslow's hierarchy of needs
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology, proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation, which he subsequently extended to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity....
- Living wage
Living wage is a term used to describe the minimum hourly wage necessary for shelter and nutrition for a person for an extended period of time...
, a wage that is high enough to meet basic needs
- Basic income
A basic income is a proposed system of social security, that periodically provides each citizen with a sum of money that allows the receiver to participate in society with human dignity. Except for citizenship, a basic income is entirely unconditional...
Further Reading