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Poverty is not just an economic condition, it is a lived reality shaped by history, culture, politics, and global systems. Vietnam’s journey from colonization, war, and famine to rapid development in the late 20th and early 21st centuries offers a sharp contrast to the modern crises of poverty in the United States and Canada. While Vietnam has made dramatic strides in poverty reduction, many in North America find themselves trapped in cycles of homelessness, medical debt, and food insecurity in nations that are among the wealthiest in the world. Understanding these different trajectories helps illuminate both the structural nature of poverty and the choices societies make in addressing it.
Colonial Poverty and Famine in Vietnam
Vietnam’s poverty in the modern era has deep roots in colonial exploitation. Under French colonial rule (1887–1954), the Vietnamese economy was restructured to benefit the metropole. Large tracts of fertile land were converted into rice plantations and rubber estates controlled by French companies and a small Vietnamese elite. Peasants were forced into tenancy, paying high rents and taxes, and losing traditional rights to communal lands.
The 20th century brought devastating famines. Most infamous was the famine of 1944–45, during which an estimated 1–2 million Vietnamese died. This catastrophe was not simply the result of poor harvests, but of colonial extraction policies that exported rice to support the French war effort, even as peasants starved. Poverty under colonialism was not accidental; it was institutionalized.
War, Destruction, and Survival
The First Indochina War (1946–1954) against France and the Second Indochina War (commonly known as the Vietnam War, 1955–1975) deepened poverty. Villages were destroyed, farmland was bombed with chemical defoliants like Agent Orange, and millions were displaced. In the south, U.S. aid created dependency economies, while in the north, a centrally planned system emphasized survival and industrial buildup under extremely harsh conditions.
By the end of the Vietnam War, the country was impoverished, devastated, and internationally isolated. Hunger, rationing, and unemployment were widespread. The U.S. embargo, imposed in 1975, further restricted Vietnam’s ability to recover. Poverty during this period was not just material but existential, as the country was cut off from global trade and aid networks.
Doi Moi and Economic Reform
The turning point came in 1986 with the introduction of Đổi Mới (“Renovation”), Vietnam’s market-oriented reform program. The government shifted from a rigid planned economy to a “socialist-oriented market economy.” Land reforms allowed peasants to own and profit from their production, foreign investment was encouraged, and the private sector was gradually legitimized.
The results were dramatic. According to the World Bank, Vietnam’s poverty rate fell from about 70% in the 1980s to below 6% by 2019. Rural electrification, infrastructure development, and expanded education contributed to this success. Crucially, growth was paired with relatively equitable income distribution compared to many other developing nations. While inequality has increased in recent years, Vietnam’s progress is often described as one of the most successful poverty reduction stories of the past half-century.
The Persistence of Poverty in Vietnam
Despite these successes, poverty in Vietnam has not been eradicated. Ethnic minority groups, who make up about 15% of the population, account for more than half of those still living in poverty. They often live in mountainous, remote regions with limited access to infrastructure and education. Urban poverty, while less visible, persists in informal settlements on the edges of cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
Additionally, new forms of economic vulnerability have emerged: precarious factory work in global supply chains, environmental degradation, and rising costs of housing in cities. Poverty has shifted from widespread famine to relative deprivation and inequality. Still, compared to its history, Vietnam today is an extraordinary case of resilience and upward mobility.
Vietnam is often described as a place where “everyone eats,” and that’s not just a cliché. Food is deeply woven into the social fabric, daily rhythms, and economic life of the country. Street stalls line nearly every block, offering steaming bowls of phở, plates of cơm tấm, banh mi sandwiches, fresh fruit, and endless varieties of noodle soups. Because meals are affordable—sometimes less than a dollar—eating out is not a luxury but an everyday practice across classes. Markets bustle morning and evening, and meals are rarely solitary; they’re shared with family, friends, or even strangers on tiny plastic stools. Unlike in North America, where poverty often means hunger, in Vietnam poverty more often means limited variety or nutrition rather than outright lack of food. Eating is communal, frequent, and central to identity, reminding both locals and visitors that food here is not only sustenance but a cultural expression of abundance, resilience, and belonging.
Poverty in the United States and Canada: Wealth Amid Scarcity
Turning to North America reveals a paradox: in some of the richest countries in the world, poverty remains entrenched. Unlike Vietnam, where poverty reduction was pursued as a central national project, the U.S. and Canada often approach poverty piecemeal, treating it as an unfortunate byproduct of capitalism rather than a structural failure to be systematically corrected.
The U.S.
In the U.S., more than 37 million people live in poverty, and tens of millions more are classified as “near poor.” The poverty line itself is notoriously low, failing to account for real costs of housing, childcare, or healthcare. Homelessness has surged, with over 650,000 people unhoused on a given night in 2023. For many, poverty is inseparable from healthcare costs—medical bills remain the leading cause of bankruptcy.
Structural racism deepens the problem: Black, Indigenous, and Latino households are disproportionately poor, often as a result of historical dispossession, discriminatory housing policies, and unequal access to education. In the wealthiest nation in history, poverty is a systemic and moral crisis.
Canada
Canada presents a somewhat gentler version of the same problem. Official poverty rates are lower than in the U.S., thanks to universal healthcare (increasingly fee for service) and nominally more generous social programs. Yet food insecurity has skyrocketed—by 2024, one in five Canadian households struggled to afford food. Disabled people’s benefits are notoriously low, well below deep impact poverty levels. Social assistance rates in Ontario have not moved in a decade of tremendous inflation. Homeless encampments now dot cities from Toronto to Vancouver. The opioid crisis intersects with poverty, leaving communities devastated. Indigenous peoples in Canada, much like ethnic minorities in Vietnam, are vastly overrepresented among the poor due to legacies of colonialism and systemic neglect.
Unlike Vietnam’s clear, decades-long national effort to lift millions from poverty, Canada often relies on patchwork social assistance programs that leave people falling through cracks. Welfare and disability supports are chronically underfunded, and housing affordability has reached crisis levels.
Comparing Vietnam and North America
The contrast between Vietnam and North America is stark and revealing.
- Historical Trajectories
- Vietnam’s poverty was the result of colonial exploitation, war, and isolation. It was systemic, national, and almost universal.
- Poverty in the U.S. and Canada exists amid extreme wealth, technological advancement, and abundance. It is concentrated among marginalized groups, but it is also growing among the working and middle class.
- Policy Approaches
- Vietnam made poverty reduction a cornerstone of national policy, tying economic reforms to rural development, education, and health.
- In the U.S. and Canada, anti-poverty measures are fragmented, often reactive, and shaped by political ideology. Welfare retrenchment since the 1980s has weakened social safety nets.
- Inequality vs. Scarcity
- In Vietnam, poverty historically meant scarcity: literal hunger and famine. Today, it means being left behind in the race of development.
- In North America, poverty often means exclusion from abundance: homelessness in cities full of empty condos, hunger in nations that waste enormous amounts of food.
- Community vs. Individualism
- Vietnam’s collectivist ethos and state-directed policies frame poverty as a shared national struggle.
- In the U.S. and Canada, poverty is often stigmatized as individual failure, with social narratives emphasizing personal responsibility over structural reform.
Lessons and Reflections
Vietnam’s story underscores that poverty can be reduced dramatically when it is treated as a political priority. Its reforms were imperfect, and inequalities remain, but the commitment was sustained and measurable.
The U.S. and Canada, despite vast wealth, struggle with poverty not because of scarcity but because of political choices. In the U.S., tax cuts for the wealthy coexist with chronic underinvestment in housing and healthcare. In Canada, the dismantling of public housing programs and inadequate social supports fuel crises that could otherwise be prevented.
Vietnam’s experience does not offer a direct template—it developed in a different historical and cultural context—but it demonstrates that poverty reduction requires long-term vision, structural investment, and the political will to treat poverty as unacceptable.
The Bottom Line
Vietnam’s history of poverty is a story of suffering, survival, and transformation. From colonial famines to postwar devastation, Vietnam now stands as a country that has lifted tens of millions out of poverty in just a few decades. Meanwhile, in the United States and Canada, poverty festers in the shadow of wealth, exposing deep inequalities and systemic failures.
The comparison forces a hard question: if a war-torn, once-impoverished nation like Vietnam can drastically reduce poverty, why can’t North America, with all its resources, solve the crises of homelessness, hunger, and inequality? The answer lies not in economics alone, but in the values and choices that societies make about whose lives matter.
