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Comment by john_butts | Hacker News Reader

Like, I'm not trying to be snarky, there's a lot of conversions going on there that aren't explicated. My takeaway is that if you can buy food and little else, that's poverty, right? Or no?

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I was born and brought up in India. When I was going to school in 1990, my dad used to earn around 6,000 INR / month (120$/month, exchange rate was 50 back then). We ate out probably once every few months but even then, the salary was enough to feed family of 5 and send me and my sisters to school. I think you lack the perspective on how poor India and China is.

This source https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_rupee_exchange_rate_h... seems to suggest that the exchange rate was 1 USD < 20 INR throughout 1990. In fact, the exchange rate doesn't seem to have hit 50 until over twenty years later.

What's your point?

It was simply a correction to the following portion: "6,000 INR / month (120$/month, exchange rate was 50 back then)". Assuming the accuracy of the salary, it appears the following is more accurate: "6,000 INR / month (300$/month, exchange rate was 20 back then)".

I think this is the definition of extreme (absolute) poverty vs poverty.

http://www.un.org/documents/ga/conf166/aconf166-9.htm

Oh, it's totally poverty. Just not extreme poverty.

Well, if you have a home and can cook food 400 Rs/day isn't too bad. (With 100 Rs you can get some vegetables more than a kilo of rice) Buying from a food stall is going to be somewhat more expensive than cooking food yourself. And food stall prices vary depending on quality of the food.

Also, poverty definitions vary.

EDIT: 400 Rs/day = 12000 Rs/month which isn't horrible.

I think the emphasis is on the word "extreme", kind of like critically endangered vs. just endangered for wildlife.

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