Basically there are two definitions of poverty with two crowds of followers.<p>1. People are poor if they can&#x27;t afford (basic) things. People are very poor if they go hungry to bed.<p>2. People are poor if they earn less [1] than the average (not median) household. From the article &quot;The report looked at the gap between the income of the poorest Japanese families with children and the average household income.&quot;<p>When does the poverty rate rise in 1. and 2.?<p>1. When peoples (real) income decreases (e.g. they lose jobs) and they can&#x27;t afford (basic) things they could afford 10 years before. Or prices are rising to the same effect. The margin between income and costs gets smaller.<p>2. When some people get a lot richer (e.g. the &quot;1%&quot;) then the income average rises and the poverty rate rises, although &quot;poor&quot; people might also have higher income or can afford more things than 10 years before (because of cheaper food, clothes, phone costs, energy they have more &quot;disposable income&quot;).<p>I wish we would label these two types of poverty differently to have better discussions.<p>[1] EDIT: a certain percentage