Kuala Lampur, July 28 -- JULY 28 - Poverty still exists in Malaysia, albeit at a low level. A paper by Wan Amirah Wan Usamah provides some understanding of the unresolved challenges.

For decades, Malaysia has proudly pointed to its headline poverty rate - a figure that has steadily declined from over 49 per cent in the 1970s to less than 6 per cent today. On paper, it looks like a development miracle. But walk through the low-cost flats in Kuala Lumpur or the estates in Sabah, and you will see a different reality. The official numbers are not wrong - they are just incomplete.

We have confused income poverty with lived poverty. And that confusion is costing us our social mobility.

The standard approach measures whether a household earns...