> Virtually everyone would agree that a 20-meter tree is twice as tall as a 10-meter tree. Conversely, everyone would agree that the 10-meter tree is twice as short as the 20-meter tree. There is no threshold or “shortness line” above or under which these relationships cease to hold: a 5-meter tree is twice as short as a 10-meter tree, a 1-meter tree is twice as short as a 2-meter tree, and so on. This reasoning remains valid when considering other multiples: a 1-meter tree is three times shorter than a 3-meter tree. To be sure, when assessing the height of a single tree, different people may disagree whether it is short or tall, as their judgment will depend on the benchmark they use for their assessment. However, when comparing two different trees, virtually everyone would make similar cardinal comparisons. In mathematical terms, shortness is the reciprocal of tallness. [...] In this paper, I apply the same logic to define a new poverty measure