Search

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.