Poverty can be defined as a condition where an individual or community lacks the financial resources and the essential resources needed to maintain a minimum standard of living. The poverty line can be defined as the level of government standards that describe the minimum individual or household income that classifies an individual or household as poor.

As much as there are disadvantages of poverty for the individual and community such as social, economic, cultural and political exclusion, there are also benefits of poverty which include receiving assistance from the government through government incentives such as public goods and services, such as:social grants; public schools for free education; public clinics for free medical treatments; Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) which aims at providing free housing; there is no need to file for a tax return when earning a small income etc.

Other benefits of poverty include an increased skills development level in poor people, as they learn new skills through doing things themselves by accumulating the skill of how to unclog a drain, knowing how to sow, knowing how to fix things, cut hair, performing manual labour as a way of making money through rendering their services to other people; and that poor people are more resourceful, as they find creative and alternative ways to reach a solution, for example: reusing newspaper as an alternative for toilet paper.