Re:90% of My Skills Are Now Worth $0
by Dylan16807 on Friday April 21, 2023 @06:03PM
(#35660845)
Their point wasn't about absolute versus relative. You need food and shelter and the number needs to reflect both.
But I think it's fair to say that the baseline should grow, more slowly than the median.
The internet has replaced other forms of communication and is needed to get almost all jobs, so yes it's a necessity now.
The line of poverty, under the relative measure model, would just keep growing. I don't agree with that - poverty should be measured absolutely; ala, the minimum calories you can intake and maintain health, the minimum heating/clothing required to not freeze to death or succumb to the elements, sanitation, and basic healthcare (things like cuts/bruises/bacterial infections dont kill you).
As soon as you start to include things that didn't exist at the time of setting this absolute baseline but would in the future if the technology develops, you start moving the poverty goalpost. For example, the internet didn't exist in the 1960's, but i've heard that access to it is included in poverty meaasures today.