poverty traps
Self-reinforcing indigence cycles
Poverty traps are conditions or cycles that make it difficult for people or regions to escape poverty.
The term captures how poverty perpetuates itself—lack of resources prevents investment in education or health, which limits earning potential, which maintains poverty.
Economists debate whether such traps exist structurally or reflect other factors: Foreign aid alone won't break poverty traps without institutional reform.
- vicious cycleSelf-perpetuating harmful pattern
- income inequalityDisparity in earnings distribution
- microfinanceSmall loans for poor entrepreneurs
- entrapmentDefense against induced criminality
- destitutionExtreme poverty, lacking necessities
exploitation · cycles · economic mobility · debt spiral · lack of access · deprivations · income disparity · mires · economic disparity · social exclusion · malnutrition · shantytown · indigence · structural inequality · low wage jobs · hand to mouth · illiteracy · escape
- segregationresidential segregation, redlining, ghetto, ghettos, steering
poverty trapsgolden parachutes
Generous exit packages for executives
virtuous cycles · upward mobility · wealth accumulation · compound growth · social mobility
poverty trapssocial safety nets
Public programs preventing destitution
springboards · launchpads · level playing fields · economic freedom · escape routes
poverty trapsaffluence
Abundance of money
prosperity · wealth · economic security · financial freedom · abundance
trap, poverty, deprive, deprived, penury, impoverished, impoverish, impoverishment, pauperism