What's in a poverty line?

Gini coefficients and poverty lines are helpful for forming estimates. But lest we forget, poverty, as informed by our social life, is contextual.

...being poor in a poor country means having an income that is not just low but variable and unpredictable. At least as much as a family’s average level of income (such as $2/person/day), the volatility around the average drives how the poor manage money. If you make $1 today, $4 tomorrow, and nothing the day after, but need to put food on the table every day, you will engage in complex strategies of borrowing and saving to smooth the mismatch between your income and outflows. Thus out of necessity poor people deploy more complex financial strategies than do the rich.