Poverty is heavily something that relies on how people perceive there conditions.
Wrong, poverty means being poor financially AND having no obvious way to change it.
That "AND" is very important. If I quite my job, lie on my couch and smoke weed for 6 months, chances are I will be quite poor. However, I can change that by getting off my couch, shaving and getting a job.
On the other hand, some random dude in Port-Au-Prince has very little chance of changing his fortune - even if that is becuase of his low IQ or cultural restraints. Same with some slumpeople in New Delhi.
This is very important to understand. You're not poor if you can change your condition by hard work. If, despite hard work, you can't change your condition, then you are poor.
The poverty america faces is with intellectual poverty. Those poor people seem to lack any critical thinking skills. That is a problem, but what is a much larger problem is that where less intelligent people in the past had 'street smarts' and knew how to make the most of little, the current crop of people have no idea about basic housekeeping and bookkeeping.
Thats the main difference. The original immigrants to America were poor as dirt and most were not very smart/educated. But harsh times had taught them to make the most of what they had and they helped each other out. That is why they could go from poor to middle class in one to two generations or less.
However, the people who have destroyed this community knowledge of life are the liberals and their attack on family, society and moral institutions.
For example, liberals of some intelligence, always detest religion, but they don't understand that people who lack intelligence and selfcontrol need that kind of motivation.
