The article comments on poverty in the welfare state. According to the sociological school, poverty, like other problems of man in society, should be interpreted in social and not purely individual terms. Poverty is not just a question of the bare necessities of life, such as food, shelter, and clothing, but more generally of being able to cope in the kind of society where one happens to live. A more recent example is the official concept of poverty used in public statistics in the U.S., which has often been referred to as an absolute concept. This is very misleading. It is true that the U.S. poverty index is estimated on the basis of the cost of food which is held to be necessary for families of different compositions. But the decision about what foods are regarded as necessary is made with reference to American nutritional habits. Somewhat different poverty lines are defined for different regions because of assumed differences in economic and social circumstances. The U.S. poverty index does not set the poverty line at a very generous level. Nor is it adjusted from one year to another except for inflation. But this has nothing to do with the theoretical question of absolute or relative concepts. The theoretical problem of poverty research does not lie so much on the conceptual level, as in the problem of measurement. Having decided that poverty is relative, one is not much the wiser about how to actually measure it.