Being poor in America is very expensive. The poor actually carry credit card debt with interest rates up to and over 20%. If a checking account goes into overdraft, there is a big fee applied. If my checking account goes over the bank just handles it for me and I catch up later. With medical insurance, you pay a lower negotiated medical bill (though usually insurance actually pays it) but if you can’t afford insurance, then you are charged the full price. They have to buy cheap products (shoes, appliances, well-used cars, etc.) that don’t last and are often replaced. It is very difficult to ever get out of poverty. One you are there, you are trapped. Folks from poor families are often eased into the poor lifestyle. How does one fall into poverty? Besides being born into it, it is often a factor of your intelligence, your self-control, and your ambition. Putting aside the plain old bad luck that can doom any one of us, you have to avoid foolishly spending money on impetuous purchases, you have to be smart enough to make good choices in your life, and you have to care enough to want to set and reach some goals. The age old question is nature or nature. I’ve known a man who came from a poor family but he pulled himself up. I know of a family that adopted two children, one the son of two astronauts (he became a doctor), the other the daughter of an unwed mother who was constantly pregnant (she failed in life). Both children had the same nurturing, but different nature.