Poverty industry or poverty business are a wide range of commercial activities that attract a large portion of their business from the poor. Businesses in the poverty industry often include payday loan centers, pawnshops, rent-to-own centers, casinos and gambling, lotteries, liquor stores, tobacco stores, credit card companies, and bail-bond services. Illegal ventures such as loansharking might also be included. The poverty industry makes roughly US$33 billion a year in the United States. In 2010, elected American federal officials received more than $1.5 million in campaign contributions from poverty-industry donors. In poorer countries, the poverty industry exploits the bottom of the pyramid and its extent can at times be used as a litmus test to assess the effectiveness of poverty reduction initiatives. In some cases, the poverty industry directly takes advantage of poverty-alleviation initiatives (e.g. formal, government-supported microfinance). For example, some moneylenders misrepresent themselves as formal microfinance initiatives or obtain loans from formal microfinance initiatives through deception. They on-lend these loans to micro-entrepreneurs (informal intermediation).
See also Alternative financial service – Financial service provided outside traditional banking institutions Economic inequality – Distribution of income or wealth between different groups Ghetto tax – Poor people often incur higher expenses due to lack of optionsPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Misery index (economics) – Economic indicator measuring economic and social cost Pay-to-stay (imprisonment) – Practice of charging prisoners money for their involuntary stayPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Predatory lending – Unethical lending practices Working poor – Working people whose incomes fall below the poverty line Poverty industrial complex – Privatization of social servicesPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Wage slavery – Term criticizing labor exploitation Debt buyer
References
Further reading Hudson, Michael, ed. (1993). Merchants of Misery: How Corporate America Profits From Poverty. Introduction by Maxine Waters. Common Courage Press. ISBN 978-1567510829. Retrieved 22 July 2013. Caskey, John P. (1996). Fringe Banking: Check-Cashing Outlets, Pawnshops and the Poor. Russell Sage Foundation. ISBN 978-0-87154-180-2. Archived from the original on 5 December 2010. Retrieved 22 July 2013. Hatcher, Daniel L. (2016). The Poverty Industry: The Exploitation of America's Most Vulnerable Citizens. NYU Press. ISBN 978-1-4798-7472-9.
