The cycle of poverty is very often self-perpetuating. It can't just be chalked up to laziness.
I'm not just chalking it up to laziness. I have said only a certain percentage can be blamed on that.
a very small percentage.
^This. I can only toss my own personal anecdotes in there as well, but everything I've seen of poverty (and I've seen a hell of a lot of it) points to poverty as a self-maintaining cycle. My parents were both from large (8+ kids), poor, abusive families who thoroughly did not prepare their kids for the realities of adult living; this lead to the cycle of desperation, abuse, and poverty repeating itself over fourty times (counting all my aunts, uncles, and cousins) in my family alone, just counting my "near" family.
As I like to put it, you can't get far in a car with too little gas in the tank. If two people - one with a large supply of personal wealth and one who collects bottles every day just to eat - attempt to fill the proverbial tank, the "rich" man will get further. Even if the "rich" guy works hard for his money, he started out with more and doesn't have to struggle nearly that hard to get by, so what funds he has will get him more in the long run. It's just that simple.
