A Christian Consensus on Poverty?

Two weeks ago I criticized the two presidential candidates for their nearly exclusive focus on what is good for the middle class and their lack of similar focus on poverty. I argued that although it is certainly true that a strong middle class can be beneficial to society as a whole, without policies aimed directly at addressing poverty, the poor will be the least likely to benefit from economic growth. Christians must be motivated by a preferential option for the poor, not for the middle class, and I concluded by suggesting the need for a bipartisan consensus among Christians in support of the poor. Here I would like to build on that suggestion by outlining a conceptual framework that can serve as a basis for that consensus and some policy recommendations as a starting point for discussion.

One problem with contemporary discussions of poverty is that they are so focused on income. As the economist Amartya Sen points out, income is only a means to an end. What really matters is human well-being. Sen’s colleague Martha Nussbaum defines human well-being in terms of ten capabilities: life; bodily health; bodily integrity; senses, imagination, and thought; emotions; practical reason; affiliation; other species; play; and control over one’s environment (see here for definitions of each capability). Sen defines poverty primarily as “capabilities deprivation” rather than lack of income. Of course adequate income is necessary to possess most of these capabilities, but the capabilities approach provides a more useful measure of poverty, for the following reasons: