>i actually have hard copy of the UN's 2001 global report on human
>settlements, which i've been flipping through to see how they flesh
>out the concept of absolute poverty, and how they might bring
>together data on access to resources (water, education, etc.) and
>income.
To be fair to the World Bank, which is an impulse I don't feel every day, they do try to measure these things. The $1/day measure is a measure of extreme poverty, and hardly the last word on the subject, by their own admission. There's plenty of stuff available from their main poverty page <http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/index.htm>.
Doug