Poverty, in its most basic sense, is generally understood as the ‘deprivation in well-being’ (Haughton and Khandker 2009). This understanding assumes that our well-being is inherently tied up to our lack of control of the things that allow us to meet our needs. Therefore, for most of us, poverty is the absence of this relative control over resources to make ends meet. The measure of poverty, in other words, is done by comparing one’s access to and control of these resources, such as income and possessions.

Social scientists and experts nowadays have devised ways to understand poverty depending on how one sees it:
a) Relative poverty – is understood as a condition of living that allows people to access their basic needs. However, their earnings cannot meet the average level of standard living in their locality. This means that people who live in relative poverty can still live normally in their society, but cannot enjoy comforts such as having their own car to travel from one place to another;
b) Absolute poverty – is a kind of poverty that people experience where they cannot meet the necessities for them to live: food, water, shelter, and health services. People under this category unfortunately are extremely vulnerable to hunger, undernutrition, disaster, and pandemic outbreaks.
c) Subjective poverty – uses a different understanding of poverty where one’s perceptions and expectations are taken into account in gauging one’s place in the society. Here, the people are really expected to be reflective of their situation; allowing them to define and make sense of their condition vis-à-vis their access to necessities and a comfortable life.

Measuring poverty is done in various ways. At the household level, the most popular one is by using income as the base in knowing one’s ability to access one’s needs and other necessities. Income is best understood as the total amount that resulted from one’s consumption and one’s assets (Haig 1921; Simons 1938; Haughton and Khandker 2009). The problem with this measurement is that it is too simplistic and that it tends to disregard other factors that happen in between consumption and assets that lead to income.

Looking at consumption, this measurement, in fact, can already reveal one’s access to life necessities or basic needs. It is understood here that consumption is supposed to complement one’s ability to purchase or pay (Haughton and Khandker 2009). However, just like income, consumption can also be problematic because it is difficult to measure given that there are goods and services that sometimes are not necessarily reflected in one’s spending.

At present, measuring the poverty line, or the use of the average price of commodities needed for one’s survival as the basis to know who is poor or not, is currently used in many societies. In this case, people whose meagre resources or income cannot reach the poverty line are considered to be living in poverty (Giddens 2006). Again, just like the previous attempts to measure poverty, this measurement falls short in taking into account the differences of cost of living in areas in a society: urban versus rural, or in cities versus towns.

At the aggregate level, poverty is measured by using indices that reflect a country’s average income such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP). For most of us, this measure is used to know how a particular country is doing in terms of the total value of all the goods, services, and transactions that have been produced minus the costs that produced them within a specific period of time. The problem of this measurement, though, is that it does not cover other sources of income and consumptions within a country.

These days, many institutions and scholars are using more holistic and multidimensional ways of measuring poverty that take into account other factors and aspects that perfectly capture the condition of poverty. One of these measures is the Human Development Index of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that highlights human capabilities as the main criteria of measuring development in a country. It is understood as the average measure of these three: one’s life expectancy from birth, years of education, and gross national income per capita (GNI).

It is important to know what poverty is and how it can be measured because this issue involves some of the most vulnerable individuals, households, people, and sectors. in our society. In times of trouble, the poor people are the first ones who experience the brunt of natural calamities, famine, wars, crises, and pandemic outbreaks. They are also the first ones who are abused and exploited by other people for profit and other illicit acts such as human trafficking, selling of organs, and other crimes.

Worse of all, poverty is aggravated by misgovernance, corruption, and abuse of power from the government. The impoverished population first feel the impact of substandard public services and goods—leading to their worsening situation, making things harder for them to survive.

In the Philippines, poverty incidence has ranged from 20.5 percent to 22.6 percent in recent years according to the World Bank (2020). Data on subjective poverty reveals a greater percentage, as 48 percent of Filipinos feel poor, 29 percent feel borderline poor, and 23 percent feel not poor in the second quarter of 2021. The largest population of self-rated poor are found in Visayas with the number at 70 percent while Luzon and Mindanao having 38 percent and 51 percent respectively (Social Weather Stations, 2021).

Table 1.1 Annual Per Capita Thresholds and Poverty Incidence among Families by Region: 2015 vs. 2018

 2018 Official Poverty Statistics

Social Inequalities, as understood recently, are the “condition where people have unequal access to valued resources, services, and positions in the society” (Kerbo, 2003, p.11 cited by Blackburn, 2008, p.251). In this sense, as compared to poverty, this unequal access pertains to an institutionalized limitation that conditions a person’s access to what he or she needs or values in the society. Nowadays, these inequalities are determined by existing social stratifications that are based on attributes and backgrounds such as class, background, gender, and ethnicity.

Unlike poverty, social inequalities use bases that are not justified by reason or nature (Blackburn, 2008). Throughout the centuries, societies have formulated restrictions that helped them order and structure their social relations that eventually favor and privilege few at the expense of the many. For instance, ‘ethnic inequality’ uses one’s ethnic background as the basis of giving preference or privilege. In some societies, people who belong to ethnic backgrounds such as Chinese, Indians, among others, are discriminated against for their culture, religion, practices, and clothing. These people experience both overt and subtle limitations for their development and growth in their workplaces, schools, and communities by discriminating against them to access good positions, quality education, and participate in communal activities, among other things.

Slavery is another form of social inequality. Slavery has been an institution throughout human history. There are a number of factors which makes people vulnerable to slavery, which include war, local conflict and ethnic hostilities. Many of those forced into slavery were prisoners-of-war, criminals and debtors. In the 17th to 19th centuries, slaves from Africa were frequently imported to American colonies.

Slaves were treated unequally with the general population and thus not given the same rights as free men. As a consequence, their ethnicity was often mistreated and discriminated against. This was made worse by social darwinism or the perceived superiority of Europeans over other “races,” and racial segregation.

The legacy of discrimination still pervades some societies to this day. Many Black communities in former European colonies, e.g., United States, South Africa, Brazil, have been neglected or undersupported by local and national governments. These communities are also often plagued by poor housing, decrepit infrastructure, slow work mobility, underfunded education and less health subsidies. Despite recent reforms and changes in their policies and laws, people of color still experience systemic denial of opportunities, delays in promotions and racist treatments from their communities and governments.

Gender is another source of inequality that is also unjustifiable and intolerable in many ways. This social inequality goes way back to centuries when women have already been regarded as a lesser kind of people—having characteristics and attributes that are regarded as weak and vulnerable. In some countries, women are barred from working, studying, or occupying important positions in society. These days, even if societies have opened up opportunities to women, many still experience being denied better occupation, promotion, lesser benefits, unrecognized contributions, among others (Blackburn, 2008).

Across the globe, the struggle for gender equality that has started among women is now joined by its new allies in the LGBT+ communities. Just like women, people from the LGBT+ community such as lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders (thus LGBT), among many orientations, are also victims of widespread discrimination, exclusion and abuse.

Other forms of inequalities are class inequality and caste system, among other things. Class inequality is understood as a form of inequality that is based on one’s income, access to wealth, or means of production in a society (Giddens, 2006). Our society, according to this stratification, is divided between the upper, middle, and lower classes, with the upper class having the bigger income or most access, middle class with moderate income or ample access, and lower class with minimal income or limited access. For centuries, this system has been used by scholars and activists in pointing out the unjust situation of the working class vis-à-vis the capitalist class. In a capitalist set up, the capitalists, or the owners of capital, usually get the bigger share of the profit at the expense of the hardworking laborers who run the factories, offices, and other work settings. In the long run, this system has led to the concentration of wealth for the upper class and systemic economic exclusion of the ‘99%’ of the population.

A caste system is a form of structuring a society similarly to the class system. A caste is assigned to a person for life (Giddens, 2006). In a caste society, people are sometimes prohibited to marry people from other social groups. The most well-known caste system is found in India, where they practice Hinduism. In the Hindu caste system, they structure their society into four: Brahmins (learned people and intellectuals), Ksyatriyas (soldiers and rulers), Vaisyas (farmers and merchants), and Shudras (laborers and artisans) (Giddens, 2006). There are gaps in the rights that members from each caste exercise, such as access to employment, education and other services, and basic needs. However, Giddens (2006) observed that these conditions may become less rigid due to globalization.

These days, the aforementioned forms of inequalities aggravate the worsening conditions of peoples in various parts of the world.

In the Philippines, these forms of inequalities are scattered in our communities, institutions and practices. Many women are still discriminated against in their workplaces, schools, universities, and health facilities. Many individuals from the LGBT+ communities also face the same, if not worse, conditions or situations, in the sense that they are openly discriminated against and excluded in our society—based on our culture, biases, and prejudices. Millions of our workers up to now are still denied their security of tenure, benefits, social protections from their employers and workplaces. Together with poverty, these forms of inequalities have also caused so much injustice and harm to many people.

It is important to know what social inequalities are and how they manifest in our society today, because this issue involves the same most vulnerable individuals, households, people, and sectors in our society. These people are often the most vulnerable during times of crisis such as natural calamities, famine, wars, and pandemic outbreaks. Additionally, both the poor and the marginalized are abused and exploited by the same people for profit and other illicit acts such as human trafficking, selling of organs, and other crimes.

This is especially evident in the Philippines, as marginalized groups have suffered the most in the recent pandemic.. Indeed, many of those in the informal sector have had their livelihoods severely affected by the months-long lockdown. Those who were able to make a living had to face reduced mass transportation. In addition, public utility vehicles (PUVs) that the public can afford and access are unreliable, highly unmaintained, and lacking in safety measures (Africa, 2019). These same laborers were threatened with “no vaccination, no pay” and “no vaccine, no work” policies, to which labor groups have disputed (Medenilla, 2021). And those who were infected with COVID-19 faced preferential treatment in hospitals.

In the presence of misgovernance, corruption, abuse of power from the government, and weak political institutions, people who are victims of social inequalities experience overlapping forms of deprivation of life necessities and restriction to opportunities for them to live a decent life. These days many women, LGBT+, people of color, and abused workers among others. live below the poverty line. Poverty and social inequalities overlap in many societies. You can see overlapping qualities that are present in some people, like low-income women or LGBT who are black or belong to mixed ethnic backgrounds.