As the article observes, the only really solidly documented positive story about mass uplift from relative poverty is China.
Relative poverty in the west is very confusing. The 1960s defined poverty for me, because it was when I was born into some awareness of what it could be. Learning in the late 70s that "no access to colour TV" was a signal of relative poverty struck me as bizarre at the time, but having said that, nobody would blink at the proposition "cannot afford a tablet for kid at school" as a relative poverty measure.
This, alongside "cannot afford regular meals", at the same time: so more computing power than man-on-the-moon, in the same breath as not-enough-food. Truly wierd.
To be fair, regular meals are far more expensive than a tablet.
I think a lot of the weirdness comes from politician's desire to muddy the waters when it comes to poverty in their own nations - many first world, wealthy countries have a problem with food insecurity, and child malnourishment, so it's understandable that politicians want to confuse the issue by mixing the uncontroversially damaging forms of poverty in with more mild and subtle forms.
One area where this comes up again and again is free school meals - data has shown repeatedly that child malnourishment is a leading driver of differences in academic outcomes in countries like the US and UK (hungry kids can't concentrate so well). However, school meals are very expensive, so they are often a target of cuts by politicians that think poverty in first world countries is either superficial or voluntary.
Relative poverty in the west is very confusing. The 1960s defined poverty for me, because it was when I was born into some awareness of what it could be. Learning in the late 70s that "no access to colour TV" was a signal of relative poverty struck me as bizarre at the time, but having said that, nobody would blink at the proposition "cannot afford a tablet for kid at school" as a relative poverty measure.
This, alongside "cannot afford regular meals", at the same time: so more computing power than man-on-the-moon, in the same breath as not-enough-food. Truly wierd.