The Poverty Line

The Poverty Line is a website created by a photographer and an economist in response to the basic question of "what it means to be poor" around the world. To date, the site has information on twenty different countries, both developed and developing. For each country, the site's creators have established a per-person, per-day rate of national poverty; corresponding images show the types and amount of food a person could purchase if they were living at the poverty line, depending on where they live.

The homepage is a map showing each of twenty countries, with the per-day poverty rate given in U.S. dollars. As users select each country, a pop-up provides an image with information about the relative poverty level of each nation. The Gallery page has an interactive tool where users can draw comparisons between the countries and various types of food that could be purchased. As countries and foods are selected, photographs are displayed to aid in visual comparisons. Selecting an image provides additional information about each country's poverty rate, and some have links to relevant articles.

The Poverty Line can serve as a unique tool for introducing students to the complex topic of global inequality. While it isn't the best standalone resource -- nor was it intended to be -- the site can certainly spur a discussion. It's likely best used as a one-off resource to help kids consider, compare, and maybe even draw some conclusions about wealth disparities around the world. Students will find it interesting to select different countries and food items to compare, which will most likely trigger further interest about the topic. Because of this, the site will be most valuable as one piece of a larger unit on global wealth and poverty.

Some of the concepts, like consumption data and poverty-line rates, are fairly high level. But the images of day-to-day items and the use of the U.S. dollar for comparison help to make the content more accessible to students at varying levels. There's definitely value in sharing it with students, but the site doesn't go in-depth enough, nor does it provide a broad enough context, to give students a solid understanding. Nevertheless, it's bound to spark their interest in this increasingly important topic.