摘要：The elimination of widespread poverty and ever growing income inequality are at the core of all development problemsand in fact, for many people define the principal objective of development policy. Poverty and inequality need to bemeasured more precisely to provide a meaningful understanding of how much progress has already been made, howmuch more remains to be achieved, and how to set incentives for government officials to focus on the most pressingneeds. Absolute poverty is defined as the number of people who are unable to command sufficient resources to satisfytheir basic needs. Economists have agreed that poverty does not have one definite concept. However, in Malaysia povertyis commonly conceptualised from the perspective of monetary or income. This article outlines the poverty measurementpresently used by the Economic Planning Unit (EPU), Prime Minister’s Department. Besides discussing the presentpoverty line income (PLI) method, the article proposes a multidimensional poverty measurement index. The proposedmethod comprising of monetary and non-monetary indicators is expected to capture a more realistic poverty group.Furthermore, the multidimensional phenomenon of poverty in a more holistic way is envisaged to be captured and isexpected to have an impact on the policy makers as it gives a new perspective for measuring poverty
