In late 1993, South Africa’s first nationally representative household income and living standards survey was undertaken. Analysis of data from that survey indicates that perhaps half of all black South Africans lived in poverty in 1993, a stunning portrayal of material deprivation, inequality, and human insecurity found in the midst of a an upper middle income country with a per-capita income in excess of $3000. A recently completed report for the South African Inter-Ministerial Committee on Poverty and Inequality (May, et al., 1998) calculates the UNDP’s Human Development Index for specific South African ethnic and regional groupings in 1992, and finds that the HDI for “African” population of South Africa ranks between that for Swaiziland and Lesotho, while the HDI for Whites is between that of Italy and Israel.