Editing Poverty threshold (section)

===History of the concept of relative poverty===
In 1776, [[Adam Smith]] argued that poverty is the inability to afford "not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without."<ref name=AdamSmith1776>{{cite book|author=Adam Smith|title=An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations|volume=5|number=22|year=1776|title-link=An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations|author-link=Adam Smith}}</ref><ref name=Innocenti2012 />

In 1958, [[John Kenneth Galbraith]] argued, "People are poverty stricken when their income, even if adequate for survival, falls markedly behind that of their community."<ref name=Innocenti2012 /><ref name=Galbraith1958>{{cite book|author=Galbraith, J. K.|year=1958|title=The Affluent Society|publisher=Houghton Mifflin|location=Boston}}</ref>

In 1964, in a joint committee economic President's report in the United States, Republicans endorsed the concept of relative poverty: "No objective definition of poverty exists. ... The definition varies from place to place and time to time. In America as our standard of living rises, so does our idea of what is substandard."<ref name=Innocenti2012 /><ref name=rep1964>{{cite report|title=Minority [Republican] views, p. 46 in U.S. Congress, Report of the Joint Economic Committee on the January 1964 Economic Report of the President with Minority and Additional Views|publisher=US Government Printing Office|location=Washington, D.C.|date=January 1964}}</ref>

In 1965, [[Rose Friedman]] argued for the use of relative poverty claiming that the definition of poverty changes with general living standards. Those labelled as poor in 1995, would have had "a higher standard of living than many labelled not poor" in 1965.<ref name=Innocenti2012>{{cite report|url=http://www.unicef.ca/sites/default/files/imce_uploads/DISCOVER/OUR%20WORK/ADVOCACY/DOMESTIC/POLICY%20ADVOCACY/DOCS/unicefreportcard10-eng.pdf|title=Measuring child poverty: New league tables of child poverty in the world's rich countries|series=UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre Report Card|number=10|author=Peter Adamson|author2=UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre|year=2012|location=Florence, Italy|access-date=19 June 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130612021633/http://www.unicef.ca/sites/default/files/imce_uploads/DISCOVER/OUR%20WORK/ADVOCACY/DOMESTIC/POLICY%20ADVOCACY/DOCS/unicefreportcard10-eng.pdf|archive-date=12 June 2013}}</ref><ref name=Friedman1965>{{cite report|author=Friedman, Rose. D.|year=1965|title=Poverty: Definition and Perspective|journal=American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research|location=Washington, D.C.}}</ref>

In 1967, American economist [[Victor Fuchs]] proposed that "we define as poor any family whose income is less than one-half the median family income."<ref>{{cite journal |id={{ProQuest|1298125552}} |last1=Fuchs |first1=Victor |title=Redefining Poverty and Redistributing Income |journal=The Public Interest |volume=8 |date=Summer 1967 |page=88 }}</ref> This was the first introduction of the relative poverty rate as typically computed today<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ravallion |first1=Martin |last2=Chen |first2=Shaohua |title=Welfare-Consistent Global Poverty Measures |website=National Bureau of Economic Research |series=Working Paper Series |date=August 2017 |url=https://www.nber.org/papers/w23739 |doi=10.3386/w23739 |ssrn=3027843 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Foster |first1=James E. |title=Absolute versus Relative Poverty |journal=The American Economic Review |date=1998 |volume=88 |issue=2 |pages=335–341 |jstor=116944 }}</ref>

In 1979, British sociologist, [[Peter Townsend (sociologist)|Peter Townsend]] published his famous definition: "individuals... can be said to be in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the types of diet, participate in the activities and have the living conditions and amenities which are customary, or are at least widely encouraged or approved, in the societies to which they belong (page 31)."<ref name=Townsend1979>{{cite book|author=Townsend, P.|year=1979|title=Poverty in the United Kingdom|location=London|publisher=Penguin}}</ref>

Brian Nolan and Christopher T. Whelan of the [[Economic and Social Research Institute]] (ESRI) in Ireland explained that "poverty has to be seen in terms of the standard of living of the society in question."<ref name=CallanNolan1993>{{cite journal|last1=Callan|first1=T|last2=Nolan|first2=Brian|last3=Whelan|first3=Christopher T|year=1993|title=Resources, Deprivation and the Measurement of Poverty|journal=Journal of Social Policy|volume=22|issue=2|pages=141–72|doi=10.1017/s0047279400019280|hdl=10197/1061|s2cid=55675120|url=https://researchrepository.ucd.ie/bitstream/10197/1061/3/nolanb_article_pub_033.pdf}}</ref>

Relative poverty measures are used as official poverty rates by the [[European Union]], UNICEF and the [[OECD]]. The main poverty line used in the OECD and the European Union is based on "economic distance", a level of income set at 60% of the median household income.<ref>{{cite news|url =http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8177864.stm|title = Just what is poor?|access-date = 25 September 2008|author=Michael Blastland|work=BBC News |date = 31 July 2009
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