poverty trap
Self-perpetuating financial hardship
A poverty trap is a situation where escaping poverty becomes nearly impossible because the conditions of being poor create barriers to advancement.
Low wages prevent saving, poor education limits job prospects, and means-tested benefits may disappear just as income rises—leaving someone no better off for working harder.
Without childcare assistance, she couldn't take the job that would have lifted her out of the poverty trap.
- disincentiveFactor discouraging action
- welfareComfort and prosperity
- welfare cliffSudden aid loss threshold
- vicious circleSelf-reinforcing negative loop
- benefitsGains or helpful effects
food stamps · dependency · entrapment · hunger · public assistance · social safety net · economic mobility · destitution · beg · struggle · structural inequality · subsidies · underemployment · deprivation · marginal tax rate · dead end job · school dropout · social stigma
- povertydestitution, penniless, needy, indigent, neediness
- inequalitywealth gap, income gap, disparity, wage gap, income disparity
- catch-22svicious cycle, deadlock, debt spiral, infinite regress
- social mobilitysocial mobility, class mobility, upward mobility, downward mobility, economic ladder
- vicious cyclesvicious cycle, downward spiral, debt spiral, death spiral, shame spiral
- laborlabor, labor union, work, labor force, laborers
poverty trapupward mobility
Rising social or economic status
economic freedom · financial security · financial independence · economic ladder · social mobility
poverty trapupward mobility
Rising social or economic status
social mobility · economic ladder · wealth accumulation · rags to riches · economic opportunity
poor, trap, poverty, entrap, poorest, destitute, poorer, penury, poorness