There is no easy answer. Poverty in North America is caused by a combination of factors that work against a person or family. Individual decisions do play a role, but they are almost always made worse by external factors.
The external factors can be grouped into three categories: situational, generational, and structural.
Situational Factors
Sometimes people are thrown into poverty by circumstance. A provider is laid off, becomes disabled, or dies, leaving the family without support. Mental illness, especially when untreated, strips people of their abilities. A natural disaster destroys a family’s home, or a huge medical bill forces them into bankruptcy.
Generational Factors
Poverty is a vicious cycle. A child raised in poverty is likely to remain poor. Since her parents have to concentrate on survival, they will not be able to share academic and life skills with her. She will receive inadequate food, school supplies, and medical care. Children who are hungry, sick, or in crisis cannot learn.
Many children grow up in homes destroyed by drug and alcohol addiction, sexual and physical abuse, and unhealthy relationships. Those who are victimized struggle for the rest of their lives to find hope and self-worth. Children in poverty also lack a safety net of connections to healthy, resourced people.
Since children learn from their parents, they are likely to repeat the cycles of addiction and abuse. Girls assume they will be single mothers. Boys follow the strongest men, who are often gang leaders. For too many families, dealing drugs and stealing puts food on the table.
Structural Factors
There is a web of structures that makes it hard to overcome poverty. Racism on many levels still oppresses people of color. Elderly people in the United States have difficulty paying for medication and hospital visits. Students at inner-city schools have fewer resources and begin life with a disadvantage.
There are also structures, however well-intentioned, that make it hard to become self-sufficient. Low-income housing is built in large complexes, concentrating and magnifying the problems caused by poverty.
Welfare laws are so complex and change so often that just staying in the system is a full-time job. And there is a huge gap of unmet needs when one moves off welfare. For example, if a single mother gets a minimum-wage job (a success), she loses her assistance. Her income is not enough live on, and she is left with no medical insurance and the cost of childcare.
