Here’s an interesting article from Politico about poverty — by someone who’s lived it. Jonah Schepp grew up desperately poor in Manhattan, yet got a good education and ultimately a stable job.  He says, though, that this wasn’t a matter of hard work and gumption; it was “dumb luck”.  He lucked into situations that helped him, just as other folks ‘luck’ into situations that drag them down.  It wasn’t a matter of pulling himself up by his bootstraps.  He writes:

“There’s no denying that poor people make bad choices all the time. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter much because we don’t actually have that many choices to make, economic or otherwise. This, more than anything else, is what our moralizing politicos fail to understand about American poverty: how often we get stuck in situations where we have no options.”

A good read for those who think that poverty is somehow poor people’s fault.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/what-republicans-dont-get-about-poverty-213511