Poverty

How do we decide what poverty is? Is it the people in third world counties, who can't afford to eat good food? Is it only the people who are held on the brink of death where money would hold certain life or does it extend to people in our own country? People on the streets, or people who have to borrow money for lunch two days before payday, or people who have to take a calculator with them to find out what groceries they can afford before they get to the checkout? Or does it depend on how much money we have? As a person or a community average? Are the people who have to search through their shrapnel to buy a beer poor while we can pull a note from our wallet and rich while we have to forgo the drink? Is the kid with second hand books at the private school poor at school for having cheaper goods and rich in their community for going to a private school? and more so, in these times of economic struggle, can we actually say that nuns sworn to live in poverty are in poverty, when they have joint ownership of vast quantities of land? something even the higher income earners in our society are struggling to obtain. Can anyone who is capable of affording luxuries (things not directly relevant to our survival) claim to be living in poverty?