In order to better understand the shape of poverty in Africa and its links with democracy, this paper examines results from Afrobarometer surveys in seven Southern African countries between 1999 and 2000. These data describe the extent, depth and structural characteristics of poverty in Southern Africa, the strategies that ordinary people use to overcome poverty, and the consequences of poverty for citizen willingness to support, participate in, and defend democracy. In contrast to recent efforts to simplify the concept of poverty, we find that well-being in Southern Africa is multi-dimansional and cannot be reduced to a single composite measure. It is, however, possible to isolate and measure a multifaceted but unidimensional "Lived Poverty Index" that taps people's ability to obtain the basic necesssities of life. This index is empirically distinct from, though related to, other aspects of well being such as health or access to state services. Analysis based on this index suggests that the well-established relationship between national wealth and democratic endurance is not a result of micro-level dynamics (e.g., that poor people are less democratic than workers or the middle class). Rather, it may simply be that at the macro level, poor countries are less able to afford or maintain the formal staet and societal institutions vital to sustainable democracy such as quality electoral machinery, an independent news media, and a vibrant web of civil society organizations.