Businesses in the poverty industry often include payday loan centers, pawnshops, rent-to-own centers, casinos, liquor stores, lotteries, tobacco stores, credit card companies, and bail-bond services.
The poverty industry makes roughly US$33 billion a year in the United States.
[5][page needed] In 2010, elected American federal officials received more than $1.5 million in campaign contributions from poverty-industry donors.
[6] In poorer countries, the poverty industry exploits the bottom of the pyramid and its extent can at times be used as a litmus test to assess the effectiveness of poverty-alleviation initiatives.
[7] In some cases, the poverty industry directly takes advantage of poverty-alleviation initiatives (e.g. formal, government-supported microfinance).