'Society means a shared life. If some and not others are poor, then the principles on which life is shared are at issue: society itself is in question.' (Halsey, 1985).
Poverty is a problematic situation and it is disputed with good reason. Disagreements over how poverty should be conceptualized. Defining and measuring poverty is about finding what is unacceptable in the society and also saying a great deal about the way we would like things to be appropriately applied. Poverty is also political because it relates to the allocated resources and reflects on the past and present policy choices, the ways in which politicians, citizens and expects use the concept of poverty have a very diverse roots in social, political and philosophical communication.
Measuring poverty is essential as a first step in understanding the nature and extent of deprivation, it is clear that there a number of different ways in which poverty has been conceptualized and measured. Poverty has come to a head over the years in the most recent understanding of the relative nature of poverty built around an essential core of absolute poverty.
Absolute poverty line is used to provide a headcount of the number of people living in poverty, but it is not able to reflect poverty depth or to provide any information on the types of deprivation experienced by people living in poverty. Therefore an absolute poverty line does not provide any information on levels of inequality in any country. Measures of poverty are easily accessible and transparent to ensure that ordinary people are able to use the measures and understand what the measures reflect, it also reflects a choice of values in both senses of the word. Values that are chosen will reflect the honest commitment to accept that the current levels of poverty need to be urgently addressed.