Understanding poverty through Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

“Poverty is indisputably the worst curse in human life. It reduces human existence to near non-existence. It is demeaning and humiliating. Mere day-to-day survival is the prime concern of the poverty-stricken life. The thought process of the poor seldom transcends beyond the threshold of survival. Poverty-stricken people in a society or nation are considered a burden and generally looked down on.

An American psychologist, Abraham Maslow, came up with the theory of the hierarchy of human needs in 1943. Known as the pyramid of needs, it begins with the most basic human needs and climbs up the pyramid to the most challenging needs. Using the pyramid model, Maslow created a classification system reflecting five sets (or stages or tiers) of human needs.”