Why not consider that being absolutely poor is worse than being only relatively poor?

A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures

James Foster, Joel Greer, Erik Thorbecke · Econometrica · 1984 · 5.5K citations

Social Sciences, Economics, Development Economics +9

Poverty: An Ordinal Approach to Measurement

Amartya Sen · Econometrica · 1976 · 3K citations

Social Sciences, Economics, Public Economics +10

POOR, RELATIVELY SPEAKING *

Amartya Sen · Oxford Economic Papers · 1983 · 1.8K citations

Social Sciences, Economics, Development Economics +9

Dollar a Day Revisited

Martin Ravallion, Shaohua Chen, Prem Sangraula · The World Bank Economic Review · 2009 · 453 citations

Social Sciences, Development Studies, Economics +17

Aggregate Poverty Measures

Buhong Zheng · Journal of Economic Surveys · 1997 · 404 citations

Social Sciences, Economics, Development Economics +7