I think we're talking a bit past each other here; I don't deny that on average poor people were generally worse off 100 years ago (although I'm not a student of history, so there may be some nuance here, or not, I'm not sure), but I don't think that's important here.
Of course "poverty" is subjective, but IMHO it's a disgrace that (working!) people struggle to make ends meet every month, and would definitely classify that as "poverty". That peasants 100 years ago had it worse is just irrelevant here, in my view.
I'm not entirely sure what the intention of your comment was, but by your reasoning we could relativise every war as "it's not as bad as WWII" or every pandemic as "it's not as bad as the black death", and that doesn't strike me as a helpful or constructive way to deal with the problems that exist in the here and now.
Of course "poverty" is subjective, but IMHO it's a disgrace that (working!) people struggle to make ends meet every month, and would definitely classify that as "poverty". That peasants 100 years ago had it worse is just irrelevant here, in my view.
I'm not entirely sure what the intention of your comment was, but by your reasoning we could relativise every war as "it's not as bad as WWII" or every pandemic as "it's not as bad as the black death", and that doesn't strike me as a helpful or constructive way to deal with the problems that exist in the here and now.