Questions to Ask About Poverty
Questions to ask about poverty when you are the one leading: a teacher with a class, a youth or church group leader, a student gathering views for a project, or a parent with one child. They run in the order the talk tends to go: what poverty is and how it is counted, causes and common assumptions, daily life on a low income, poverty near and far, then what helps and what this group could do, with a last set worded for younger children. The notes are written on the assumption that someone in the room is living the subject, so they show how to ask without anyone having to reveal what they have at home, and they mark the answers that need a local figure looked up before anyone argues.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
What it is
What does the word poverty mean to you?
Why ask it
Give everyone a minute to write one sentence before anybody speaks, then hear a few. Most first answers are about money, and one or two will be about what money buys: choices, safety, a say in things. Correct neither kind, because whether poverty is an amount or a lack of options is the argument behind every official definition.
What is the difference between being broke and being poor?
Why ask it
Teenagers are quick with this one. Broke has an end date, such as payday or a call home, and poor does not. If the group treats the two as the same thing, ask who the broke person could call and what happens to someone with nobody to call.
What is the difference between absolute poverty and relative poverty?
Why ask it
One workable split: absolute poverty is going without what a body needs to stay alive and well, and relative poverty is having so much less than the people around you that you cannot take part in ordinary life. Sources draw the line differently, so say which meaning you are using today. Then ask which one the group has been describing so far.
Who sets the poverty line where we live, and what is it this year?
Why ask it
Treat it as homework, not a quiz. The figure, the body that sets it and the way it changes with the size of a household differ from country to country, so give one person the job of finding the official source before you meet. Once the number is on the board, ask what the group thinks it is meant to cover, and whether a month's rent where you live would fit inside it.
Can a person work full time and still be poor?
Why ask it
A fast 'no' is an assumption worth testing with arithmetic. Have the group look up the lowest legal wage where you live, if there is one, and a typical rent for a small home, then multiply and subtract. Whatever the sum shows for your area, they will trust it more than anything you tell them.
How many people in our country are counted as poor, and how many of them are children?
Why ask it
Take guesses on slips of paper, as so many people in every hundred, before anyone looks it up. Then have someone read out the official count, the year it covers and the line it was measured against, all of which differ by country. A wide spread of guesses is the useful result, so ask where each number came from.
If you had to draw a poverty line from scratch, what would go in the basket of things a person must be able to afford?
Why ask it
Food and rent go in without argument. The quarrel starts at a phone, home internet, a car, a birthday present for a child. Let it run, since the people who set official lines have that same argument, and the group now knows a line is a decision somebody made.
Which words for people with little money would you not want used about you?
Why ask it
Whatever else you skip, put this within the first ten minutes and you will have fewer remarks to walk back later. 'The poor', 'the needy', 'less fortunate' and 'those people' each put a distance between speaker and subject, and a group can hear it once the phrases are side by side. Let it choose the wording it will keep to, such as 'people on a low income' or 'families short of money'.
What do you picture when you hear the word poverty, and where did that picture come from?
Why ask it
Expect a charity appeal, a film or one street the person has walked down. The picture is usually far away or extreme, so ask who is missing from it: the family two doors down whose parents both work, or the classmate nobody would guess. With older groups, add who took the picture and what they wanted from the viewer.
Is poverty only about money, or can a person be poor in time, health, safety or people to rely on?
Why ask it
It widens the definition, and it carries a risk: someone will say that everybody is poor in some way, which makes the subject vanish. If that happens, ask which item on the list can be traded for most of the others.
Causes
Why are some people poor?
Why ask it
Take every reason without comment, then have the group mark each one P for something about the person or S for something around them, such as wages, prices, illness or where they were born. Most lists lean hard one way. Ask what would have to be true for the other column to be longer.
What single event could push a family that is getting by into poverty?
Why ask it
The better answers trace the chain link by link: the car will not start, so the shift is missed, so the pay is short, so the rent is late. A lost job, an illness, a separation or a rent increase will do as the first link. Follow with what might have caught the family on the way down, and who has those cushions and who does not.
Is hard work enough to get out of poverty?
Why ask it
The room will split, and both halves hold something true, so ask for jobs that are hard and badly paid, then for people who worked their way up and what else they had going for them. The worrying answers sit at the two ends, where effort is everything or effort is pointless. On a student's survey it works as a scale from one to five, compared across age groups.
What have you heard said about people who are poor, at home, online or in the news?
Why ask it
Asking what was heard, not what is believed, lets people voice a view without owning it. 'Lazy', 'bad with money', 'bad luck' and 'the system' will all turn up. Each person then picks one saying and comes back next time with a real figure that supports or dents it.
If someone has a smartphone or a big television, does that mean they are not really poor?
Why ask it
If somebody in the room is thinking it, better that it is said. A sound answer compares the price of the object with a month's rent and notes that job applications, claims for help and school messages now run through a phone. Be wary of the reply that treats a possession as evidence that somebody is faking.
How much of where a person ends up depends on the family and the place they were born into?
Why ask it
Best for older teens and adults. Have each person list privately three things they had before the age of ten that cost money or time: books, a quiet room, a ride to practice. Nobody shares the list, only whether writing it changed their answer.
What does a child from a low-income home need to go right that a better-off child can afford to have go wrong?
Why ask it
Money buys second attempts: at a failed exam, a lost job, a brush with the police, a year of illness. A group that sees this stops sorting choices into good and bad and starts asking what a mistake costs and who pays. Test it on a film or a novel everyone knows by asking who funded the hero's second try.
Why can it cost more to be poor than to be comfortable?
Why ask it
Give the group ten minutes to find examples and they will come back with late fees, small packs that cost more per ounce, the laundromat, high-interest loans and the long bus ride to the cheaper store. Have them price one for real. This is the question most likely to surprise a room that has never been short.
Why might someone short on rent still buy a treat, a takeout meal or a present?
Why ask it
Answers that begin 'I would never' are the ones to slow down. Ask what the week before that purchase probably looked like, and what the people in the room reach for when they are worn out. Nobody has to approve of the choice, only be able to explain it.
Which groups of people are most likely to be poor where we live, and what might explain it?
Why ask it
The first half is a lookup, and the answer changes with the country: children, single parents, older people, disabled people or particular districts may stand out. Find the official breakdown together. Hold the second half to mechanisms such as pay, care duties and housing costs, and steer away from anything about a group's character.
Daily life
If a household lost a third of its income overnight, what should go first, and what would you fight to keep?
Why ask it
Keep it about an imagined household, say two adults and two children, so that nobody is reporting on their own. Each person writes both lists before sharing, and the 'fight to keep' list is the one to read out, because it shows what people count as dignity: a haircut, the internet, a pet, a child's club. Return to it when someone later calls a low-income family's spending a luxury.
What has to be paid before a family has any money left to choose with?
Why ask it
Build the list on a board: housing, heat and light, food, transport, phone, childcare, debt. Then turn it into a budget with local prices the group looks up, against a wage you have also looked up. Leave the gap, or the lack of one, on the board for the rest of the session.
What decisions does a person short of money make in a week that others never have to think about?
Why ask it
Good answers are small. Which bill can be late, whether a sore tooth can wait, walking to save the fare, the excuse for missing a birthday. If someone answers from their own life, thank them and move on without questions, since they have already given more than you asked for.
How does a shortage of money at home follow a child into school?
Why ask it
Start the group at the front door in the morning and walk through a school day: breakfast, the bus fare, the right shoes, trip money, a device that works for homework, a party invitation that cannot be returned. The quieter costs come last, such as being tired or pretending not to care about the trip. Teachers should listen for anything on the list that the school itself created.
What does our own school, club or congregation charge for or expect that is hard on a family with little money?
Why ask it
Ask it only if you will carry the list to whoever decides, and tell the group afterward what was said. Expect trips, supply lists, dress-up days, fundraising asks and events held when shift workers cannot come. Of everything on this page, it is the question most likely to change something by next semester.
How does being short of money affect a person's health?
Why ask it
Collect the routes the group can think of: cheaper food, a cold or damp home, a dentist visit put off, night shifts, worry that does not switch off. What a doctor's visit costs depends on the country and sometimes on the job, so have someone find out how it works where you are. If every answer is about diet and willpower, ask where sleep, heating and stress belong on the list.
What does it take to hide being short of money, and why do people go to the trouble?
Why ask it
Clean clothes, a phone and a smile at the school gate can cover a great deal, which means nobody here knows who in the room this describes. Keep it about people in general: invented excuses, borrowed outfits, never having friends over. The 'why' leads to shame, and from there to who taught us that having little is something to be ashamed of.
What is it like to ask for help, and what makes it easier or harder?
Why ask it
Start with any kind of help, a ride or a homework answer, since everyone has asked for something. Then move to forms, lines, showing that you qualify and being looked at. A group planning a food drive or a giving project should keep these answers and design around them.
What would be hardest about not having a steady place to live?
Why ask it
People think of cold and danger first. Push on to the dull obstacles: an address for a form, somewhere to charge a phone, getting to school on time, keeping clothes clean for work. Remember that this covers sofas, cars and motels as well as the street, and that a child in the room may be living it.
What do people who have lived on very little know how to do that others never had to learn?
Why ask it
It is the counterweight to an hour of pity: stretching a meal, mending instead of replacing, reading a bus schedule like a map, knowing which neighbor has what. Stop it short of 'poor but happy', which is a comfortable story told mostly by people who are not poor.
Near and far
Where is poverty in our own town, and how do we know?
Why ask it
Send the group after one number and one place: figures your local council, county or school district publishes, and a pantry, shelter or advice center they could name. A room that says there is none here has given you the reason for the session. Check the claim together before you argue with it.
How is being poor in a rich country different from being poor in a poor one, and what is the same?
Why ask it
The differences come quickly: clean water, a clinic, a school place, enough to eat. The sameness takes longer and matters more, with shame, shut doors and few choices near the top of most lists. If someone concludes that nobody nearby is really poor, go back to absolute and relative.
What is the international line for extreme poverty, and what would that amount buy in a day?
Why ask it
The World Bank publishes a line in dollars a day and revises it from time to time, so look up the current figure and do not trust one remembered from a textbook. Then price a day's food at your own store. The line is adjusted for what money buys in each country, which makes the comparison rough but still worth doing.
Has extreme poverty in the world gone up or down since your parents were children?
Why ask it
Take a show of hands before anyone checks. Then have someone find the long-run trend from the World Bank or another source that shows how it counts, and compare it with the vote. Whichever way the room was wrong, ask where its impression came from and what the measure leaves out.
Why are some countries much poorer than others?
Why ask it
History, including colonial rule, war, geography, how a country is governed, debt and the terms of trade will all be offered, and economists still argue about the weight of each. Aim for a group that can hold several at once. The answer to challenge is any that comes down to the people being less able or less hardworking.
How does a flood, a drought or a war turn into poverty, and who gets back on their feet first?
Why ask it
It is the single-event question at the size of a country. The mechanism to listen for is the loss of whatever earned a living: land, animals, tools, a shop, years of school. Those with savings, insurance or family elsewhere recover first, and the group can test whether that holds for a household too.
What do we buy cheaply because somebody along the way was paid very little?
Why ask it
Clothes, phones, chocolate and coffee are the usual guesses, and guesses is what they are until someone checks. Set a small task: pick one thing you own and trace it back as far as you can. How quickly the trail goes cold is itself worth ten minutes of talk, and it keeps the question from ending in guilt.
Could extreme poverty be ended in your lifetime, and what would it take?
Why ask it
There is a real target to hold the answers against: ending poverty is the first of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, with 2030 as the date set for extreme poverty. Have someone look up how the count stands now, then ask what is in the way: money, war, politics or attention. Meet a shrug that nothing can be done by asking what that person would have predicted fifty years ago.
What helps
What helps someone get out of poverty, and what only helps them get through the week?
Why ask it
Draw a line down the board. A food parcel, a winter coat and a paid bill go on one side, and training, childcare, steadier pay and cheaper housing on the other. Both sides are needed, so correct anyone who calls the first one pointless: nobody gets to the second on an empty stomach.
What do we owe people who have less than we do, and where did you learn your answer?
Why ask it
The second half is the one that opens people up: a grandparent, a scripture, a teacher, a time they were helped themselves. In a faith group, set the tradition's own teaching beside what members do in an ordinary month. An answer of 'nothing' deserves a calm 'tell me more', not a rebuttal.
Whose job is it to do something about poverty: the person, the family, charities, employers or the government?
Why ask it
This is a question of values, so there is no answer to steer toward. Have each person hand out a hundred points among the five and defend the split. Party labels can stay outside if you ask what each of the five can do that the others cannot.
What help exists where we live for someone who cannot cover food or rent, and how would they get it?
Why ask it
It depends entirely on your country, region and town, so find out beforehand and bring it as a printed sheet for everyone. Handing it to the whole group means the one person who needs it never has to ask. For discussion, pick three kinds of help and compare what each requires of the person applying.
Is it better to give people money, or to give food, housing and services directly?
Why ask it
Each side rests on a belief about the person receiving, and naming that belief is the point. Ask what the cash side trusts and what the in-kind side fears. If the group wants evidence, have it find the evaluation of one named program instead of arguing in general.
Should you give money to someone who asks for it on the street?
Why ask it
Everybody already has a habit here and a reason for it, so go around and hear them without ruling. Then widen the options: a greeting, a meal, a gift to a shelter, asking the person what they need. For children the answer includes 'only with a grown-up beside you'.
Which kinds of help make a person feel smaller, and which leave their dignity alone?
Why ask it
Being photographed, being preached at, being given what somebody else wanted to get rid of and having to show need in front of others usually land on the first list. Choice and privacy land on the second. Before your group runs any project, read the two lists back as a checklist.
When has a well-meant effort to help people in poverty gone wrong, and why?
Why ask it
Have a few examples ready in case the room is slow: bags of donations nobody could use, a one-day visit that mostly produced photographs, a gift nobody asked for. The step missing from most of these stories is that no one asked the people on the receiving end. Keep the tone kind, because the lesson is to ask first, not to stop trying.
What is the difference between charity and changing the rule that created the need?
Why ask it
An example helps: a fundraiser that clears one family's unpaid school meal bill, set beside a change to how the school charges for meals. Older groups can argue about which matters more. A fair landing place is that both count, and that it is worth knowing which one this group has the power to do.
What could this group do in the next month that somebody would notice?
Why ask it
Before the group settles on anything, one person calls a local pantry, shelter or advice center and asks what it is short of, which is often not what the room guessed. Then the plan needs an owner and a day on the calendar. 'Somebody would notice' is the test, so ask who, and how the group would find out.
What do you think about poverty now that you did not think an hour ago, and what changed your mind?
Why ask it
A closing round of one sentence each, with passing allowed. The second half tells you what worked, whether that was the rent arithmetic, a lookup that surprised everyone or a remark from across the room. 'Nothing changed' is an allowed answer, and the follow-up is what that person would need to be shown.
Younger children
What do people need to be okay, and what is just nice to have?
Why ask it
For about five to nine. Sort picture cards or drawings into two piles and let the children argue over a bed, a toy, a coat and a tablet. Then say the short true thing: some families do not have enough money for everything in the first pile, and that is called being poor.
Why do some families have more money than others?
Why ask it
A small child may think money comes out of the wall at an ATM, or goes to people who are good. Offer three plain reasons: jobs pay different amounts, some grown-ups cannot work, and some families had more to start with. End by saying that having more does not make anyone a better person.
Have you ever wanted something and been told we cannot afford it? How did that feel?
Why ask it
Every child has, which makes it the bridge. From the toy or the treat, move gently to what it would be like if the thing were dinner or shoes that fit. At home it is also a fair moment to explain one real choice your own family makes with money.
When you see someone sleeping outside or asking for money, what do you wonder about?
Why ask it
Children ask the direct things: is he cold, where is her mom, why does nobody help. Answer in short true sentences, such as 'he does not have a home right now, and there are people whose job is to help'. Hurrying the child past without a word teaches that the person is not to be looked at.
What could you do if a friend never had a snack, or could not come on the class trip?
Why ask it
Sharing counts, and so does telling a teacher quietly, and so does inviting the friend to the next thing that is free. The part to teach is the quietness: no announcing it, no asking why in front of others. Practice the words, since 'want half of mine?' is easier said after one rehearsal.
If everyone had to bring money for something and one kid could not, what would be a fair way to sort it out?
Why ask it
Children are good designers of fair systems once the problem is theirs. Expect a secret pot, everyone giving what they can, or making the thing free. If you teach the class, consider adopting the plan they come up with, and tell them you did.
What does a food pantry do, and what would you pack in a bag for a family?
Why ask it
Explain it as a place where food is given, not sold, to families who are short that week. Let the child pack an imaginary bag, then ask what a kid their age would be glad to find in it and whether the family has a can opener. If you go on to give something real, the pantry's own wish list beats a guess.
Can someone be poor and also be clever, funny and a good friend?
Why ask it
The answer is yes, and children need to hear it said, because stories often show poor characters as sad and nothing else. Name a character from a book you have shared who has little money and plenty else. It guards against pity, which children slide into as easily as teasing.
Do you ever worry about our family having enough?
Why ask it
For one child, at home, and worth asking when money talk has been overheard. Listen to the whole worry before you answer it. Then say what is true and what the adults are doing about it, and leave out promises you may not be able to keep.
Leading a talk about poverty when someone in the room may be living it
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before the session
Assume it is in the room
Plan as though at least one person present is short of money at home, because you will rarely know. That means no show of hands about anyone's own circumstances, no 'who here has ever', and no exercise that reveals who has what. Nearly every question here is about people in general for that reason, and the one that asks a child whether they worry about their own family is meant for home.
Do the lookups first
Several questions need a local figure: the official poverty line, the lowest legal wage, a typical rent, what help exists and who runs it. All of it changes with the country, the region and the year, so find the current numbers from the body that publishes them, or assign each one to a group member a week ahead.
Which groups suit which ages
The Younger children group is written for roughly five to nine, taken one or two questions at a time and hung on a storybook or on something the child saw that week. Ten to thirteen year olds can manage What it is and Daily life, and they take to the budget exercise because it is a puzzle with real prices. Keep Causes, Near and far and the arguments in What helps for older teens and adults, who can leave a disagreement unsettled.
Bring the help sheet
Print one page of where a family nearby can get food, advice on bills or emergency help, and give it to everyone as part of the material. A person who needs it takes it home without having had to ask, and the rest learn what exists.
Ask about collections and reporting
Schools, congregations and youth organizations have their own rules on collections, visits to shelters and what must be reported when a child says they are going without. Ask whoever is responsible how it works there before you plan a project or invite a speaker.
In the room
Six to eight is a session
Open with two from What it is, spend the middle on one group that fits your purpose, and finish with one from What helps so the hour ends on something to do. The full list is for several meetings.
Figures first, then opinions
Where a question has a checkable half, settle that half before the debate starts. A group arguing about whether work pays is better off after five minutes with a real wage and a real rent than after an hour of impressions. A figure nobody can name the publisher and year of goes on the board as 'to check' and stays out of the argument.
Run the budget on paper
The Daily life questions work best as an exercise: small groups get a monthly income you have looked up and local prices for housing, food, transport and a phone, and have to make it balance. Then add one surprise, such as a broken appliance. Keep it sober. It is arithmetic, and nobody should be acting a part.
When someone speaks from experience
Thank them, do not ask for more, and do not let the group turn to them for the rest of the hour as the expert. Afterward, a quiet word to check they were comfortable is enough. If a child tells you they are going without, follow the reporting and support route your school or organization sets, and tell the child what you will do next instead of promising to fix it.
When someone is scornful
A remark about laziness or freeloaders has probably been heard at home and deserves an answer, not a scolding. Ask what the speaker would expect to see if it were true, and pick the question from Causes that tests it. Someone else in the room heard it too, so do not let it pass.
With your own child
The opening is usually handed to you: a person on the sidewalk, a collection at school, a no at the checkout. Use one question from the Younger children group, answer in a sentence or two, and say what your own family does about it, even if that is small. If money is tight in your own home, the last question in that group is the one to begin with.
From talk to doing
Ask before you collect
Call the pantry, shelter or advice center and ask what it needs this month and what it has too much of. The answer is often money, time on a particular day or one dull item, and it will change the project.
Pick one thing with a date
A group that leaves with five ideas does none of them. Choose one, name who does what by when, and put the report on the agenda for the next meeting.
Look at your own costs
The quickest change is usually inside your own walls: a trip that could cost less, a supply list that could be shorter, a fund that covers a place without anyone having to apply in public. Take the group's list to the person who decides.
Bring back what you learned
After a visit or a collection, ask the group what surprised them and what they had wrong beforehand. Without that, a project becomes a good deed and the thinking stops.
Where these sessions go wrong
Pity as the lesson
If the group ends the hour feeling sorry for 'them' and grateful for what it has, the people under discussion have been turned into a mirror. The question about what people who have lived on very little know how to do, and the one about dignity, pull it back.
Playing at being poor
Simulations, sleep-outs and a day on a tiny food budget can teach something, and they can also become an adventure that ends at bedtime. If you run one, say what it cannot show: that the real thing has no end date.
Sliding into party politics
Wages, benefits, taxes and housing are all election subjects, and a class or a congregation holds every view. Keep to how things work and what the figures show, and put the values questions to the group without adding your own vote. If a parent or a member later asks what was said, you should be able to show that each side got a fair hearing.
Only the faraway version
It is easier to spend the hour on another continent, where nobody in the room is implicated and nobody is exposed. A session that never comes nearer than a charity appeal leaves the group believing poverty is something that happens elsewhere. Pair each question that looks abroad with the one about your own town.
Givers here, receivers somewhere else
Projects and discussions slide into a 'we' who help and a 'they' who are helped, as if nobody present had ever used a pantry or a free meal. Say 'families', not 'those families'. Plan any collection so that a member of the group could give to it or receive from it without anyone else knowing which.