Poverty

As economic inequality grows worldwide, poverty is the single greatest threat to healthy individual development on Earth. At the same time, poverty creates profound social dysfunction across the globe. Today, nearly half the world’s population lives in poverty–about 3 billion people, including over 43 million in the United States. According to the United Nations, 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes. This is clearly a problem of enormous scope. Yet our social, political, and economic institutions have found neither the means nor the will to eradicate poverty and the life-damaging harm it causes.

Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR) aims to play a larger role in addressing the gap between poverty’s human devastation and the insufficient efforts to deter it. Through our Poverty and Inequality Project we are developing initiatives designed to expose, challenge, and confront the destructiveness and injustice of these patterns and relationships. For related topics, please also refer to PsySR’s Inequality and Racial Inequities pages.

PsySR Statement: A Commitment to Address Poverty and Inequality

PsySR has issued a statement, developed by members of the Poverty and Inequality Project, on the urgent need to address poverty and inequality. Read The Statement »

Links, Resources, and References to Learn More and Take Action

PsySR provides a listing of valuable links and resources for people working on issues of poverty and discrimination or wishing to learn more about it. Many of the websites include information on specific opportunities to take action against poverty and discrimination. The list is available HERE. We also offer an alphabetical listing of key references on poverty, which is available HERE. We welcome recommendations of additions to both lists.