The World Bank's "Voices of the Poor" , based on research with over 20,000 poor people in 23 countries, identifies a range of factors which poor people identify as part of poverty. These include
Most important are those necessary for material well-being, especially food. Others of these issues relate to social rather than material issues. However it should be noted that this text has come in for scathing criticism that argues that it recreates old, highly pejorative and sometimes racialized colonial stereotypes and projects them on to poor people.
Poverty may be seen as the collective condition of poor people, or of poor groups, and in this sense entire nation-states are sometimes regarded as poor. A more neutral term is developing nations. Although the most severe poverty is in the developing world, there is evidence of poverty in every region. In developed countries examples include homeless people and ghettos.