What is poverty?

What defines poverty? It cannot just be based on how wealthy a person is. While in America we commonly define poverty by looking at a certain person's lifestyle relative to those around him or her, it's not the same overseas. A village of farmers in Thailand, for example, may not have a lot of money, but can still feed its inhabitants and provide a home for its families.
I personally believe that poverty is reached when one is no longer able to focus on anything in life other than making ends meet. In Charles Murray's "What's so Bad about being Poor?", he proposes a thought experiment where you are in a situation with two choices: as your time on earth stops short, you must either give your child to a couple who was born into money and can easily provide for your child, but cares little for what your he or she does, or give him or her to a working family who has barely enough money to stay afloat, but will show your child a lot of love and be sure to teach him or her strong core values like humility, respect, and open mindedness. If I knew I was about to die, it would be comforting at first to know that my child would be getting the food and schooling he or she deserves, but that comfort would quickly be drowned by the worry of what would become of my child in the years to come. What would Nikola (I have just decided that my child is a boy named Nikola) do with his life when he's a spoiled adult without knowing how to work? This idea forced me to think about the couple with less money but stronger core values, and the more I thought about my son growing up in a setting like that, the more I realized that though this family had a lot less money than the other family, they were by no means poor. They have food to eat, clothes to wear, a roof over their heads, and most importantly for me, are able to to teach my son how to be a man when he gets older. Just by living with them, he will be able to connect hard work to food on the table, humility to respect, and happiness with people you love. With all this and a hard work ethic, Nikola would not have a problem finding a job and making his own money as an adult, which made choosing the working family to give him to an obvious choice. Poverty only comes when you let having little money stop you from being a productive or a good person.