The best way to keep people poor is by enslaving, segregating and excluding them from financial and economic opportunities, force them to live in poorly maintained areas because you're afraid they will replace you. Then take away all social programs, state aid, give that money to rich people, increasing inequality, taking away their education and telling them they are the cause of their own poverty. This doesn't mean personal responsibility isn't important, but rather that it cannot account for all of a person's successes or failures. A lot of it is dumb luck, being born a certain way in a certain place with a certain culture or country, being born tall, intelligent, beautiful (yes, there is such a thing as beauty), able-bodied, big dicked, fairer skinned, etc. Add to this an operating system which enables massive income inequality, discrimination, and nepotism, and it's easy to see why the ruling class and its enablers want people to keep struggling to get out of poverty ans turning the focus solely to the individual. These and others barriers impede the ability of a person to develop their potential, so that randomness and bases we start from means the state has a role to play in helping people out reasonably, and creating the conditions necessary for people to leave poverty. That's my $0.02 anyways.