Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2003 im Fachbereich VWL - Fallstudien, Länderstudien, Note: 2, Hochschule Mainz (Fachbereich III: Wirtschaftswissenschaften), Veranstaltung: International economics, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: It can be thought, that poverty does not really exist in society in times of prosperity and technical progress in industrialised and high developed countries. The great prosperity is often celebrated in speeches by governments of high industrialised states and their goods are advertised through all channels of marketing. These countries have the highest living standards in the world. For example the United States of America, on the one hand they spend a lot of money for aerospace technologies, for the defence industry and other innovative technologies but on the other hand the country has to face a high rate of poverty within its population. Poverty is expanding quickly caused due to the raise of unemployment and is not longer only a problem for developing countries in the third world. Poverty and income distribution data are a very important indicator in order to evaluate the economic well-being of a state. Income inequality and poverty data must be differed regarding characteristics such as race, level of education, age, etc.