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| == '''[[National Institute of Standards and Technology]]''' ==
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| ''by [[User:Paul Wormer|Paul Wormer]], [[User:Milton Beychok|Milton Beychok]] and [[User:John R. Brews|John R. Brews]]
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| | | ==Footnotes== |
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| {{Image|NIST Blue Logo.png|right|168px}} | |
| The '''National Institute of Standards and Technology''' (NIST) is a [[United States]] federal agency within the [[U.S. Department of Commerce]].<ref>[http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/general_information.cfm NIST General Information], from the NIST website.</ref> The institute was founded in 1901 with the aim to advance measurement science, standards, and technology. NIST was known between 1901–1988 as the '''[[National Bureau of Standards]]''' (NBS).
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| NIST has an operating budget of about $1.6 [[Parts-per notation#Summary of large number names|billion]]<ref name=Budget>[http://nist.gov/public_affairs/budget/2010budgetpiechart.cfm NIST Resources Fiscal Year 2010], from the NIST website.</ref> and operates in two locations: [[Gaithersburg, Maryland]], and [[Boulder, Colorado]]. NIST employs a staff of about 2,900 scientists, engineers, technicians, and support and administrative personnel. About 2,600 associates and facility users from academia, industry and other government agencies complement the staff.<ref>[http://www.nist.gov/hrmd/perks.cfm Why Work at NIST?], from the NIST website.</ref>
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| ==History== | |
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| Article 1, Section 8 of the [[United States Constitution]] grants the [[U.S. Congress]] the power to '''''"To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures"'''''. In June 1836, almost fifty years after the U. S. Constitution was ratified, the [[U.S. Senate]] and the [[U.S. House of Representatives]] adopted a joint resolution establishing a [[U.S. Office of Weights and Measures]] within the [[U.S. Department of the Treasury]]. From that date until March 1901, the Office of Weights and Measures was administered mostly by the [[U.S. Coast Survey]], later renamed as the [[U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey]] (USC&GS), within the [[U.S. Department of the Treasury]].<ref>There were some time periods during which the [[U.S. Army]] and/or the [[U.S. Navy]] administered the USC&GS</ref> [[Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler]], a professor of mathematics, served as the head of U.S. Coast Survey as well as the Office of Weights and Measures from 1836 to 1843.<ref>[http://www.dean.usma.edu/math/about/history/hassler.htm Ferdinand Rudolph Hessler]</ref><ref>[http://www.nist.gov/pml/pubs/sp447/index.cfm Weights and Measures Standards of the United States: A brief history], from the NIST website.</ref>
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| ''[[National Institute of Standards and Technology|.... (read more)]]''
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| ! style="text-align: center;" | [[National Institute of Standards and Technology#Literature|notes]]
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| {{reflist|2}} | | {{reflist|2}} |
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| | </small> |
Latest revision as of 09:19, 11 September 2020
The Mathare Valley slum near Nairobi, Kenya, in 2009.
Poverty is deprivation based on lack of material resources. The concept is value-based and political. Hence its definition, causes and remedies (and the possibility of remedies) are highly contentious.[1] The word poverty may also be used figuratively to indicate a lack, instead of material goods or money, of any kind of quality, as in a poverty of imagination.
Definitions
Primary and secondary poverty
The use of the terms primary and secondary poverty dates back to Seebohm Rowntree, who conducted the second British survey to calculate the extent of poverty. This was carried out in York and was published in 1899. He defined primary poverty as having insufficient income to “obtain the minimum necessaries for the maintenance of merely physical efficiency”. In secondary poverty, the income “would be sufficient for the maintenance of merely physical efficiency were it not that some portion of it is absorbed by some other expenditure.” Even with these rigorous criteria he found that 9.9% of the population was in primary poverty and a further 17.9% in secondary.[2]
Absolute and comparative poverty
More recent definitions tend to use the terms absolute and comparative poverty. Absolute is in line with Rowntree's primary poverty, but comparative poverty is usually expressed in terms of ability to play a part in the society in which a person lives. Comparative poverty will thus vary from one country to another.[3] The difficulty of definition is illustrated by the fact that a recession can actually reduce "poverty".
Causes of poverty
The causes of poverty most often considered are:
- Character defects
- An established “culture of poverty”, with low expectations handed down from one generation to another
- Unemployment
- Irregular employment, and/or low pay
- Position in the life cycle (see below) and household size
- Disability
- Structural inequality, both within countries and between countries. (R H Tawney: “What thoughtful rich people call the problem of poverty, thoughtful poor people call with equal justice a problem of riches”)[4]
As noted above, most of these, or the extent to which they can be, or should be changed, are matters of heated controversy.
- ↑ Alcock, P. Understanding poverty. Macmillan. 1997. ch 1.
- ↑ Harris, B. The origins of the British welfare state. Palgrave Macmillan. 2004. Also, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
- ↑ Alcock, Pt II
- ↑ Alcock, Preface to 1st edition and pt III.
