Mapping the needs of each area

The measure as written

RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE WEALTH asks that the third assigned part of wealth be returned to the society:

In normal conditions, the third assigned part is a legitimate target to be returned to the society (while the other two parts are liquidated only when needed to prevent societal disintegration during artificial or natural prolonged stress, e.g. wartime needs, famine, floods etc.).

Charity is the first of the ways of returning it that were discussed. For giving directly to the people, it sets what the giver must know, and gives the measure:

The easiest way is to give it in charity (if you are giving it to competent charity organizations). If the individual gives it directly to the people, then there is a whole set of instructions to follow (i.e. he should have a deep knowledge of the society in question: which areas need more attention, and which rules fit those needs in the most efficient way). (In practice, this knowledge can be gathered by mapping the needs of each area, i.e. where and how many people are unable to meet their NEPs; the locals of each area report those in need, as they know them best, while the analysis is done by rechecking these reports and employing other techniques, so that no one is left out and no one is wrongly included.) A capable individual can take up this task if he is interested.

This sub-section measures, for each of the seven societies, where and how many people are unable to meet their NEPs, area by area.

What it measures, in plain words

Charity given directly to the people asks for "a deep knowledge of the society in question: which areas need more attention, and which rules fit those needs in the most efficient way". The measure maps, in each society, where and how many people are unable to meet their NEPs, area by area.

What is measured.

· The areas. The states, provinces, regions or governorates of each society, as its own counts sort them.

· The NEPs, each on its own. A necessity is a "calculated amount of components demanded to maintain the normal functioning of the body", so each NEP has its own threshold, and having more of one does not make up for lacking another. Each is counted on its own: food (too little to eat), drinking water, sanitation, shelter (a dwelling of lasting floor, walls and roof, with a kitchen and room enough for the people living in it), health (a child of the household who has died in the last five years), teaching (a child of school age who is not in school) and electricity, wherever a society counts them area by area.

· Unable to meet their NEPs. A person who lacks any one NEP is unable to meet their NEPs.

· At least this many. In each area, the NEP lacked by the most people gives the least share of its people who are unable to meet their NEPs. Those who lack water and those who lack shelter are not always the same people, so the share in need is that much or more; the shares of different NEPs are not added, as one person may lack several.

· Which rules fit those needs. The NEP that sets this least share in each area, and the share lacking each of the others, show what the need of that area is: water in one, shelter in another, food in a third.

· The report and the recheck. Two counts for each area, where both exist: the society's own official count, and a survey that reads the same NEPs to one standard in every society it covers. Where the two place the same areas highest, the map is firm; where they part, that area is looked at again.

Read in people. Each count is a share of the people of an area, or of its households or its housing where a society counts those, and, from it, their number; no money is used.

How to read the result. Say an area shows at least 30%, set by drinking water: three in ten of its people lack safe drinking water, so at least three in ten are unable to meet their NEPs. Three points keep the reading true to what was written:

· The area with the highest share and the area with the most people in need are not always the same; both show "which areas need more attention".

· Each society's own count follows its own definitions, so it is read inside that society, area against area. The one-standard survey reads alike in every society it covers.

· As was said, the locals of each area report those in need, "as they know them best", and the analysis rechecks these reports, "employing other techniques, so that no one is left out and no one is wrongly included". Here the society's own count stands for the report, and the one-standard survey for the other technique; an area where the two part is where someone may have been left out or wrongly included.

How we measured it

The measures. Each NEP is read as the share of an area's people, households or housing that lacks it, in each society's own counts; no money is used.

· The own counts (the report).

o   The United States, its 50 states and the District of Columbia: food, the households in which, at times in the year, people ate less than they needed because the household lacked the means for food (very low food security; U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, the average of 2022 to 2024); water, the occupied homes without complete plumbing (hot and cold running water, and a bath or shower); shelter, the occupied homes without a complete kitchen (a sink with a tap, a stove and a refrigerator), and those with more than one and a half people to a room (Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2023).

o   Russia, 83 regions: the share of each region's housing floor area with piped water, and with sewerage, at the end of 2025 (Federal State Statistics Service); what a region lacks is the share without. Arkhangelsk and Tyumen are read without their autonomous districts, which are read on their own; Crimea and Sevastopol, whose status is disputed, are left out.

o   Brazil, its 26 states and the Federal District: the residents without piped water; without a toilet, or with one that drains to neither the sewer network nor a septic tank; in a home whose walls, roof or floor are of a material other than the lasting kinds the survey names; and without electricity from the grid or any other source; and the children of 6 to 14 not attending primary school or above (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, Continuous National Household Sample Survey, 2025). Food: the residents of households in which the amount of food eaten was cut (moderate or severe food insecurity; the same survey, 2024).

o   China, 31 provinces: the family households without tap water in the dwelling, without a sanitary toilet, and without a kitchen, in the long-form sample of the 2020 census (about one household in ten), read against the full count of the family households of each province (National Bureau of Statistics, China Population Census Yearbook 2020, tables 9-3 and 1-1). Both tables are published as images; they were copied by hand and checked against their own totals.

o   India, its 36 states and union territories: the households without an improved principal source of drinking water (National Statistical Office, National Sample Survey, Comprehensive Annual Modular Survey 2022-23).

· The one-standard survey (the recheck). The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2026 (Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative and United Nations Development Programme), its results by region: the share of the people of each area who lack each item, read from each society's own household survey to one standard. The items used: food (a member of the household undernourished), health (a child of the household who died in the five years before the survey), teaching (a child not attending school up to the age of finishing class 8), drinking water (no improved source, or one more than a 30-minute walk there and back), sanitation (none that is improved, or one shared with other households), shelter (a floor, walls or roof of natural or rough material) and electricity. It covers India (National Family Health Survey, 2019-21, 36 areas), Egypt (Egypt Family Health Survey, 2021, 26 governorates), Nigeria (Demographic and Health Survey, 2024, its 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory), Brazil (National Household Sample Survey, 2015, 27 areas) and China (China Family Panel Studies, 2014, three regions); the United States and Russia are not in it. For India, Egypt and Nigeria, the survey it reads is their own, so it gives their map; India's own count of drinking water then rechecks it.

· At least this many. In each area, the largest of the shares lacking one NEP, times the area's own total in the same count: its occupied homes (the United States, 2023), its residents (Brazil, 2025), its family households (China, 2020), or its people in the year of the survey (India, Egypt and Nigeria: the area's share of the people in the survey, times the society's people in that year, both from the index's table). For the society, the sum over its areas. Russia's count is of housing floor area, so it gives shares only. The fuel used for cooking and the schooling adults have had are kept beside the map, not in the least share.

· The agreement. Where both counts exist, how alike the order of the areas is in the two, read as a rank agreement (1 means the same order): Brazil's own count of 2025 against the index's reading of 2015, state by state; India's own count of drinking water of 2022-23 against the index's reading of 2019-21, area by area. China's provinces, joined into the index's three regions and weighted by their households, are set side by side with the index.

Measured years only. Each count is read in its own year, and no share is carried to another year: the United States in 2022 to 2024 (food) and 2023, Russia at the end of 2025, Brazil in 2025 (food in 2024), China in 2020, India in 2022-23 (its own count) and 2019-21 (the index), Egypt in 2021 and Nigeria in 2024.

Checks.

· China: in both census tables, every row adds up to its total and the 31 provinces add up to the national row, in every column; the sex ratios and the average size of a family household in table 1-1 come out as printed.

· India's own count: for every state and union territory, the rural and urban shares, weighted by the households in the same report, give its printed share within 0.15 points (drinking water); the states and union territories, weighted the same way, give the all-India share (4.2% without an improved source, against 4.3% printed).

· The index: for each of the five societies, the index values of its areas, weighted by their people, give the index of the society to four decimals.

What the seven societies show

Each share is the least share of an area's people (households, or housing in Russia) who lack at least one NEP; the society's figure is the sum of its areas.

Which areas need more attention. In every society, the need gathers in some areas. The area with the highest share has 2.4 times (Nigeria) to 49 times (Russia) the share of the area with the lowest: 2.6 times in the United States, 5 times in India, 8 times in Egypt, 10 times in Brazil and 11 times in China. The quarter of areas with the highest share hold a larger part of those in need than of all the people: 32% against 25% of the households in the United States, 30% against 12% of the people in Brazil, 28% against 15% of the family households in China, 44% against 32% of the people in India, 38% against 27% in Egypt, and 32% against 25% in Nigeria. And in none of the six with numbers is the area with the most people in need the area with the highest share: Texas holds the most households in need, not Kentucky; Pará the most people, not Amapá; Henan, not Tibet; Uttar Pradesh, not Manipur; Giza, not Matrouh; and Kano, not Ebonyi.

Which rules fit those needs. In each society, one NEP sets the least share in most of its areas, and it is not the same NEP from one society to another: food in all 51 areas of the United States; sewerage in 82 of the 83 regions of Russia (piped water in one); sanitation in 21 of the 27 areas of Brazil (food in four, the roof in two); a sanitary toilet in 23 of the 31 provinces of China (tap water in seven, a kitchen in one); shelter in 23 of the 36 areas of India (food in ten, sanitation in three); food in 18 of the 26 governorates of Egypt (drinking water in five, shelter in two, school in one); and sanitation in 24 of the 37 areas of Nigeria (shelter in six, electricity in four, school in two, food in one).

The report and the recheck. Where both counts exist, they largely place the same areas highest, and the areas where they part are named:

· Brazil, its own count of 2025 against the index's reading of 2015, across the 27 areas: sanitation agrees at 0.80, electricity at 0.59, water at 0.55, the floor of the home at 0.35; school does not agree (−0.12), so the map of school is the one to look at again.

· India, its own count of drinking water of 2022-23 against the index's reading of 2019-21, across the 36 areas: 0.66. The two part most in Lakshadweep (56.5% of households without an improved source, against 7.3% of people in the index's reading) and Kerala (45.6% against 5.4%), where the own count finds far more in need, and in Ladakh (0.6% against 15.4%) and Madhya Pradesh (8.0% against 21.7%), where it finds far fewer; the index's reading also counts a source more than a 30-minute walk away, and the own count does not. By India's own count, 12.0 million households were without an improved source of drinking water (4.2%).

· China, its provinces joined into the index's three regions: both counts place the eastern region lowest in drinking water and the western region highest in sanitation.

· The United States and Russia have their own count only, and Egypt and Nigeria their own survey only, read to one standard; for them, the recheck asked for has no second count to work from.

By this measure, the need of each society is not spread evenly but gathers in some of its areas, and what is lacking differs from one society to another and from one area to another: food in the United States, sewerage in Russia, sanitation in Brazil and Nigeria, a sanitary toilet in China, shelter in India, and food in Egypt. At least 5.2% of the households of the United States, 16.1% of the family households of China, 17.2% of the people of Brazil, 10.4% of Egypt, 44.6% of India and 64.0% of Nigeria are unable to meet their NEPs, and in Russia up to half of the housing of a region is without sewerage. Where two counts exist, they largely agree on where the need is, and the areas where they part are the ones where someone may have been left out or wrongly included.