“隐形贫困人口”指的是看起来每天都有吃有喝有玩，但实际上却是穷人。关于invisible poor，《纽约时报杂志》有一篇文章题为The Invisible Poor，文中一段话可以帮我们理解英语中的invisible poor指的是什么样的人：
But I think there is another force that has made this a rich era with barely visible poor people. It is the unusual social and imaginative separation between prosperous America and those still left out. This is not the embattled distance of the ''Bonfire of the Vanities'' period, with its gated communities and atmosphere of urbanarmed camps. It's more like simple invisibility, because of increasing geographic, occupational and social barriers that block one group from the other's view. Prosperous America does not seem hostile to the poor, and often responds generously when reminded. But our poor are like people in Madagascar. We feel bad for them, but they live someplace else.
可见，invisible poor是在富人接触不到或视而不见的穷人，这些人与精英阶层活在两个不同的世界里（but they live someplace else）。
“亚马逊”网站对The Invisible Poor: A Portrait of Rural Poverty in Argentina一书的介绍中提到：
Largely because of data limitations, profound gaps exist inthe understanding of rural poverty in Argentina. As a result, the rural poor have sometimes been neglected in policy discussions.
书籍名称中的invisible对应的正是neglected，即阿根廷贫困农村人口之所以被称为“invisible”是因为他们在政策讨论中被忽视。
查到的其他探讨invisible poor的英文文章也用这个表述指不被社会关注的贫困人口，因此，invisible poor不会“看起来每天都有吃有喝有玩”，他们的贫穷显露在生活的每个细节里，他们之所以“隐形”是因为被忽视，不是因为看起来不像穷人。
综上，“隐形贫困人口”中的“隐形”不能译为invisible。“隐形贫困人口”就是表面上看不出来的贫困者，或可译为the unexpected poor，即意料之外的贫困者。考虑到“隐形贫困人口”为网络热词，可以再处理的有趣一些，用一些“大词”构造荒诞的概念，比如：those living in inconspicuous poverty，inconspicuous poverty即不显而易见的贫困。
如果仅有“隐形”这么一个词，译为invisible自然没有问题，但词语离不开语境，决定一个词该如何翻译的不仅是这个词本身。将“隐形贫困人口”译为invisible poor属于字词层面的机械直译，没有考虑到在各自的语言和文化环境中，原文和译文指的东西并不一样。站在字典解释之上，以实际用法为基础，充分考虑词语含义，时刻注意避免歧义才能避免类似翻译问题。
