Precisely Your Grace. It all depends what one means by poverty. To be in the top 1% of the worlds earners you need to earn $32,400 a year (just over £25,000) - in passing, mean full time salary of a fireman is £33,087 in 2017.
With that income one could live more than comfortably in most parts of the world yet in the UK would be saying 'why oh why can't I afford a mortgage on an average house'.
I truly do not believe that there is 'real' poverty in the UK apart from those with either addictions and/or mental health problems.
In most developed countries [U]relative poverty[/U] is based on those living on less than 60% of median income. I suspect some Saudi princes feel poor as they only have a couple of Rolls Royces and others have more.
UK stats are here for 'Household disposable income and inequality in the UK: financial year ending 2016'
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/householddisposableincomeandinequality/financialyearending2016
For most people, year on year, life has been getting even better AND I note there has been a gradual decline in income inequality in the last 10 years, with levels similar to those seen in the mid to late 1980s.
(BTW. I really don't understand all this banging on about firemen. It looks quite good fun. There's no great academic qualifications needed and as long as you are reasonably fit and have decent communication skills would seem to fulfil all the criteria for entry. The chances of being made redundant are close to zero (whatever happens to the economy things will still catch fire and people need cutting out of motor vehicles). Even the pension scheme post 2015 looks pretty bloody good being based on 1/60 th's earning though the Career Average calculation is less generous than the unaffordable Final Salary one it replaced.) 