Poverty doesn’t need explanation, it’s the natural condition of man who has had to scratch a living out of the ground from time and memorial. The really interesting question is “What causes wealth?”
Author, Commentator and President of The King's College, Dinesh D'Souza
We will always have the poor because there will always be somebody at a starting point, but what is often overlooked is that the poor which exist today aren’t the same poor which existed yesterday. The more education one receives, the harder one works and the more that one’s family remains in tact, the more likely that a poor person will leave poverty behind. ... poverty is not a permanent class status, it’s simply a stage of life, which is what makes America so exceptional.
President of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, Star Parker
Naturally, people want to be rich and when they are free to profit by satisfying people's desires through ingenuity, creativity and hard work, they will do so. This not only causes them to be productive in meeting the desires of others, but causes others to be productive in meeting their desires.
Economist, investment advisor, author and commentator, Peter Schiff
there's a direct correlation between the size of a country's government as a share of its GDP (gross domestic product) to its level of poverty.
The question is not why some are poor, but why some societies become rich. Freedom, property rights, the right of free association and contract and hard money lead to wealth and prosperity.
President of Americans For Tax Reform, Grover Norquist
While the formula for eliminating relative poverty in rich nations is relatively obvious[through income redistribution], the world continues to struggle with solutions to the problem of absolute poverty in those nations where the vast majority of the population have experienced chronic poverty over many decades.
Professor & Head of QUT's School of Economics and Finance, Tim Robinson
The cause of poverty is human imperfection. Some people are poor because they do not work, and some people are poor because they can not work, and some people are poor because of horribly unlucky personal circumstances. (Some people are born into wealthy families in America, and some people are born into poor, sick villages in the Third World.)
Communications Director, Club For Growth, Mike Connolly
Generally, in the United States, it has been said that there are three things which a person can do to almost guarantee that poverty will be avoided: graduating from high school, marrying, and not becoming a single parent by having a child if not married. The vast majority of people who follow those three prescripts, something like 98.8%, don’t wind up in poverty in the United States.
Contributing editor of City Journal and Manhattan Institute senior fellow, Steven Malanga
Ultimately there’s a collective responsibility on the part of government to foster a system which creates opportunities and there’s a personal responsibility on the part of the individual to take those opportunities.
The cause of poverty is a society that, for whatever reason, cannot offer people the tools to better themselves
Author, commentator and lead Bloomberg View columnist, Jonathan Alter
