Individualistic Understanding Of Poverty

The individualistic understanding of poverty is that each person is responsible for their own poverty. The structural understanding of poverty is that the government is responsible for the poverty of the people it governs. Individualistic poverty comes with opinions like “this person doesn’t work hard enough,” “buying something you can’t afford,” or “This person is poor because they gamble to much.” Structural poverty comes with opinions like “this person lost their job and can’t find a new one” or “this person invested all of their money in a business that crashed.” Many people believe that the government should do more for people living under the poverty line, they believe that people living in poverty are the government’s responsibility.