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The article highlights the results of economic research on South African inequality from 1993 to 2019 published by academics Aroop Chatterjee, Léo Czajka and Amory Gethin in 2021. There was an increase in the percentage of income of the top 10% of earners while the average income of the poorest declined by more than 30% after inflation. It cites the effect of value-added tax on poor people. Also noted is attribution of the narrowing of racial income gap to the African elite.

The article explores the transfer of the concentration of poor people in the suburbs in the U.S. It attributes the changing geography of poverty to the declining median household income and the mismanagement of city finances. The effect of increasing housing costs and income inequality on the condition of poor people is discussed, as well as the rising number of poor children in cities across the country.

The article discusses the link between unhealthy eating and low income in the U.S. Topics include the problem of food deserts or areas without grocery stores, the impact of income inequality on public health patterns, and the influence of time constraints on the eating habits of poor people. The costs of health problems related to obesity are noted.

This article considers what widening inequalities in incomes and wealth reveal about the United States, and considers the chances that this issue will become a factor in the 2004 presidential race. Does America really have an inequality problem? Statistically, the answer is "Yes, but". Much the same applies to the question of whether the Democrats can turn this into a winning political issue. By whatever measure you use, the richest Americans have done very well over the past few decades. Take wealth rather than income, and America's disparity is even more startling. The wage incomes of the bottom 20% of households have barely grown in real terms since the mid-1970s. As for wealth, the bottom fifth has debts that exceed its assets, making its wealth a negative number. The bottom fifth's percentage of national wealth worsened from -0.3% in 1983 to -0.6% in 1998. These depressing statistics, though, come with two caveats. First, poorer Americans are better off than they once were. Second, America is a remarkably mobile society. As this year's Economic Report of the President points out, 50-80% of the unfortunates in America's bottom quintile push themselves into a higher quintile after 10 years. Most Americans seem to understand that inequality is not just to do with tax cuts for the rich.

The article considers companies in the U.S. and other developed countries which offer products and services for poorer consumers. It is noted that the real income of U.S. consumers has declined since 2005, and that 44 million persons have an income below the government definition of poverty, making this group a significant market. The fast food restaurant chain company McDonald's, whose sales have increased annually since 2006, is cited as an example.

The article discusses poverty in Latin America. All but a wretched pair (Haiti and Nicaragua) of Latin American countries are officially classed as "middle-income" and all (except Cuba) are democracies. Yet Latin America has another trait: a hugely unequal distribution of income and wealth. A disproportionately large number of Latin Americans are poor. The region's democratic governments have started to make innovative efforts to tackle poverty. These center on programs that offer poor families cash payments on condition, for example, that they keep their children in school and take them for regular health check-ups. In Mexico, 5 million families now get such payments, and 7.5 million in Brazil.

Discusses the difference of lifestyles in Cambodia, where city-dwellers live like kings while the peasants in the country live in horrible poverty. Response of the Khmer Rouge, a peasant guerrilla group; Details.

Presents information on the number of poor people in the United States for October of 1998. Reduction in the number below the poverty line; No year-to-year change in overall income inequality; Fewer blacks and Hispanics among the nation's poor; Comments from Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation on the state of the US poor.