To the Editor:

Re “America’s Deep Poverty Problem” (Op-Ed, Jan. 25): My Princeton colleague Angus Deaton has done us all a service by pointing to the existence of extreme poverty in the United States, and especially the failure of this affluent society to provide adequate shelter for homeless people. There is no doubt that governments at all levels should be doing more to meet this need.

Yet it is disturbing that Mr. Deaton has started to doubt that, in our personal giving, we should prioritize the poor in developing countries over those at home. Mr. Deaton omits the relative cost of making a major difference to the well-being of people in poverty in the United States versus in developing countries.

The Life You Can Save, a charity I founded a few years ago, recommends organizations working in developing countries that can protect a child against malaria at a cost of $4, or restore sight in someone who is blind because of cataracts for something like $100. For $450, surgery to repair an obstetric fistula can enable a young woman to lead a normal life again. To make a comparable difference to the lives of the poor in this country would require many times those sums — and that means that far fewer people would be helped. That’s why I will continue to give my charitable donations to organizations focused on helping the poor in some of the world’s poorest countries.

PETER SINGER
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

The writer is a professor of bioethics at the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University.

To the Editor:

Kudos to Angus Deaton for shining a light on the disgrace of extreme poverty in our midst, where by conservative estimates 5.3 million people cannot afford basic necessities. He is right, of course, that we should not focus only on Asia and Africa in our charity giving, but give generously to the poor right here in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. But we need to take the next step.

Poverty in the United States is a predictable consequence of our own policies relating to affordable housing, minimum wages, education, health care, social safety nets and more. Political discourse over the last few decades has conspicuously omitted any discussion of extreme poverty, with even liberal Democrats focusing mostly on the challenges facing the middle class.

By all means give to charity, but let’s also bring the scourge of extreme poverty back into our political conversation and push for policies that will confine it to the ignoble trash heap of history.