Three steps to measuring poverty

This is how the PSE project measures poverty:

1. An attitudes survey identifies what the population as a whole think are ‘necessities’: things that everyone should be able to afford and which no one should have to go without.
2. A living standards survey finds out who cannot afford each necessity.
3. A poverty count identifies how many households cannot afford these necessities to the point that affects their whole way of life. The poverty count identifies a level of lack of necessities that separates those who have both a low income and an unacceptably low standard of living from those on higher incomes whose standards of living are satisfactory or better.