Poverty in the age of extreme inequality: increasingly hidden, persistently unjust

 
The World Day of Social Justice is a fitting day to reflect on where we stand today. According to the latest report from the ILO, over the past two decades, the world (on average) has become more prosperous, healthier, and better educated. Yet persistent inequalities and a widespread erosion of trust in institutions suggest a different story, demonstrating that these improvements have not reached everyone. More concerning is the growing mistrust that signals a deterioration of the social contract; many feel that working hard no longer pays off — even though for many, it never really did — while injustices seem to appear around every corner and the constant stream of news reinforces the perception that things are getting worse rather than better.  

The question keeps returning: what should matter most, poverty or inequality? It is a false divide. Neither is new, and the current concentration of wealth points to the need to confront both. Yet recent debates often lean toward inequality alone. Given the scale of poverty worldwide, some argue it is unrealistic to worry about inequality as well, as if ensuring everyone has enough would make remaining gaps irrelevant. This view appears in Anne Phillips’s Unconditional Equals, where she engages with sufficiency arguments and suggests that what matters most is whether people have enough to function as equals in social relations. But even where poverty has declined, inequality within countries has grown, and the scale of wealth concentration makes reducing it seem politically out of reach, reinforcing the tendency to prioritise poverty alone.

In a related vein, one may also consider Elizabeth Anderson's position: focusing only on poverty can encourage the illusion that we already have equality in fundamental status. Modern democracies rest on the narrative that all human beings are equal in dignity and rights. Yet historically, declarations that "all men are created equal" coexisted with slavery, colonialism, the exclusion of women and racial hierarchy. And well… these ideas were shaped by what equality was understood to mean at the time, and in many ways those contradictions persist today.  

Focusing only on poverty, as often happens in mainstream debates, leaves unchallenged the idea that people get what they deserve and obscures structural inequalities. Poverty is then framed as individual failure rather than a question of power. Inequality is not just about resources but about who holds influence over others’ lives. As Frances Stewart notes, reducing inequality to income gaps hides these relations. There is no clear level of “enough” beyond which inequality becomes harmless. If poverty is our concern, we must also confront how it is shaped by inequality.

Understanding poverty as lived injustice helps show how structural inequality shapes everyday insecurity, exclusion and limited voice. A social justice perspective goes beyond income to questions of recognition and participation. As Ruth Lister argues, poverty is not only about lacking resources but about how people are treated, echoing Tawney’s reminder that “what thoughtful rich people call the problem of poverty; thoughtful poor people call with equal justice the problem of riches.” As Andrew Fischer notes, even how poverty is measured reflects political choices. Poverty is not simply a residual category but produced within unequal systems, often taking less visible forms that standard measures struggle to capture.

In highly unequal societies, deprivation does not always take the form of extreme material scarcity. Instead, it often appears through insecure employment, rising housing costs, digital exclusion, care burdens, or the growing costs of participating in everyday life. These experiences challenge simple distinctions between the "poor" and the "non-poor."  

In many affluent contexts, households may appear asset-rich yet still face income insecurity, debt or unstable work. Reactions such as “why don’t they simply sell their house?” assume a level of choice and mobility that overlooks structural constraints in labour markets, housing systems and family life. They also show how deprivation becomes harder to recognise when poverty is understood only as extreme scarcity. In unequal societies, poverty can remain hidden in plain sight: less as destitution than as fragile security and limited capacity to adjust to changing conditions. As inequality rises, so do the resources needed to live with dignity, making poverty harder to detect but no less real. Recognising these forms of deprivation, therefore, requires a broader view of social justice.

Bringing hidden poverty into view is not about endlessly stretching definitions, but about acknowledging how deprivation changes shape within unequal societies. When poverty is understood only through narrow thresholds, many experiences of insecurity and exclusion remain unaddressed. Taking hidden poverty seriously means paying closer attention to lived realities, to the costs of participation, and to the ways inequality reshapes what it takes to live with dignity.  

Understanding poverty as lived injustice requires more than better indicators or more data. It means taking seriously how deprivation is experienced and recognised. As Keetie Roelen argues in The Empathy Fix, empathy in policy is not sentimentality but attention to lived realities of insecurity, stigma and exclusion. Without that, policy may address poverty on paper while overlooking how it is lived in unequal societies. It also requires recognising that some forms of poverty remain hidden in plain sight and that responding to them demands more than simple solutions.

A renewed focus on inequality is essential for understanding contemporary injustices. But if poverty disappears into inequality, we risk overlooking how deprivation is actually lived. Holding both together helps reconnect structural analysis with lived experience. In an age defined by inequality, keeping poverty visible, in all its evolving forms, remains central to any meaningful pursuit of social justice.