China, USA: Comparing Poverty Lines · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

This post is part of our special coverage Global Development 2011.
China has decided to raise its poverty line to RMB 2,300 yuan (approximately USD 360) per capita annual income; the population below the poverty line will be raised from 26.88 million to 130 million accordingly.
Premier Wen Jiabao has stressed [zh] that the adjustment is to include more people in the country's poverty relief scheme. However, does the new poverty line reflect the reality of China's poor?
Poverty defined by policy
The World Bank has defined extreme poverty as living on less than USD 1.25 a day, and moderate poverty as less than USD 2 a day, since 2008.
A Guizhou family making their living on a landfill site in Jiangsu. Image by Flickr user sheilaz413 (CC: BY-SA).
Given China is among the ‘Big Four‘ (BRIC) countries in the developing world, the new poverty line of USD 0.99 a day, is considered far below the international standards.
Yahoo China has prepared a special feature [zh] to address the issue, which rightly points out that the current poverty line drawn by the Chinese government is based on the daily caloric intake per capita. In addition, the line is drawn by the government poverty relief policy rather than being a reflection of people's livelihoods:
我们国家现有的贫困线，更多是一种“扶贫线”。换言之，从最低收入人群算起，国家财力能够承担扶贫到哪条线，就以此作为我们国内的贫困线——这个扶贫线是扶贫能力本位的，是政府可以讨价还价的。
贫困线标准提高带来的不仅是穷人数量的增加，还有更多中国的扶贫资金投入。而贫困资金的发放，采取定名额分配及认定贫困县的方式。目前，中国共有592个贫困县，其认定是在1990年代完成的。这不仅造成地方与中央在资金分配方面博弈，引发腐败。
Most of the Chinese netizens find the figure unrealistic and are also skeptical of the government's poverty relief work, as indicated by the following comments on The Wall Street Journal's Weibo discussion thread [zh]:
不学无术的黑籽：贫困标准被随意地玩弄着……2300一年可以干嘛？ (今天 13:58)
德德的吧：年纯收入2300元，合每天收入6.3元人民币，在北京不知道是否可吃碗面条，估计街头要饭的也不在此列
岳_宸：一面是贫困人口食不裹腹，看不起病，上不起学；一面是有望超越日本成为世界上最大的奢侈品市场。贫富差距不断扩大越来越成为不容忽视的问题。
bigwooder：再穷不能穷领导，社会主义好
ChaoI3：我百度了一下08年公车消费900亿元,其他的历年三公经费都查不到.我想11年三公经费一定超万亿了,那就是等于40年的扶贫补助.对此我只想说:呵呵!
NOU小姐的铺子：是我们在玩数字还是数字在玩我们？
USA/China comparison
Poverty in Guangzhou, China. Image by Flickr user tarotastic (CC BY 2.0).
The Chinese poverty line figure becomes more controversial when compared with its United States (US) counterpart. The US poverty line was set at USD 22,314 annual income per household in 2010, which is equal to USD 5,578.5 (RMB 35,579 yuan) annual income per capita – more than 15 times the current poverty line level set by the Chinese government.
While local media outlet, Caijing highlighted [zh] the fact that one third of children in the US is living under the poverty line, Chinese netizens are envious of America's poor:
等待是为了不再等待：美国是被贫困，我们是被中产
哥又要人身攻击了：晕,我家属于贫困中的贫困了,完了,年收入还不到1半呢.
新远峰：这是新闻呢还是说我们过的比人家幸福吗？猪狗不如的美狗和掌权着看看自己的土地上的贫穷 的人的生活。我们在于他们相比，算是赤贫，活在这个世界算是悲哀
三胖子的那点小事：我要去美国当穷人……
月本-无心：按这标准，在中国月收入低于1万1人民币的四口之家都是贫困人口。那全国95%都是贫困人口了。
呼唤-人性：美国的贫困线标准是：年收入低于人均gdp的1/3，就是大概15000美元；中国的贫困线标准大概是人均gdp的1/30，是1500元人民币。你说谁更像社会主义？
A number of Weibo users compare China and the US's economic figures to make their points about the poverty line:
小小lo [zh]：中国贫困线的横向比较：1985、2007、2009、2010、2011年贫困线分别为206、1067、1196、1500、2300元，与当年GDP比分别为24%、5.3%、4.7%、5.0%与6.8%（预期）；纵向比较，2010年美国贫困线11390美元，与当年GDP比为24%。在中国，想成为贫困人口，还真不容易
老真天真：美国人贫困线每天15美元，中国人贫困线6.3元人民币，美国人贫困线是中国人的15倍。人均GDP美国人是中国人的10倍。再看美国的食品价格，其猪肉价格是中国的0.5倍、玉米、豆类价格均比中国低，平民的生活保障主要是用来生存的，很明显中国贫困人生活状态要比美国贫困人口低的多。比比就知道，谁的谁。
This post is part of our special coverage Global Development 2011.