Poverty cause

There's of course no single contributor to what causes poverty, but there are a few really strong ones that cause most of it. Some are easily fixable. Including:

Single Parenthood - Single-parent families, especially in minorities.
Welfare - When you pay people to not work and have kids out of wedlock (single parent homes), more people will not work and have kids without fathers. This robs the child of more than half his attention, and more than than in earnings-based opportunities, you hurt kids and families.
The failure of schools. For example, communication skills. Speaking ghetto or never learning English might make you cool with your friends, but it's going to dampen your opportunities for life. Certainly some jobs can tolerate it, but many will never be able to -- so it's a limiting factor.
The failure of culture: there's a reason that black immigrants, black kids raised by whites, black rural kids and Asian immigrants that come here with less than our black urban poor, can all outperform American inner-city blacks -- and it isn't race. It's that the others have a culture that values hard work and education -- whereas ghetto culture teaches black kids that try to get an education that they're being "white" and selling out to the man... and with the help of liberal cities, in liberal states, and liberal teachers, that their lack of performance is all someone else's fault. That's a serious problem that has nothing to do with White Privilege, and has everything to do with the failure of inner city leftist culture.

If you care, you want to ask why, and what we can do. But of course the left will call you a racist for trying to help, but they call all truths they don't like, "racist", so you can ignore them. So remember the facts:

Welfare and our social programs have held more people down, than they ever helped up.

While doing social work, at least half a dozen times I'd over heard urban teens talking about how they were going to get knocked up and go on the dole to get out of the house: it was a career path for many.

Why do they have more crime on the streets? It's not poverty as there are many poorer places with lower crime (like Japan). It's because the inner city culture of gang, drugs and "no snitchin'" makes enforcement harder, and the ethics of the community is "take what you can" and hussling is tolerated.

The attitude in inner cities that if you get an education you're a house-boy or not black enough, or if you get a job you're a fool (working for the man at minimum). "Too good for McD's". And who will hire someone without experience or a history of showing up on time, or having an entitled attitude?

Why aren't there good veggies or as many stores in inner cities? Theft is higher, produce doesn't sell. More violence/vandalism increases costs, and so on. Not all of it is their fault, but if there was money in selling good food in inner cities, it would be there. The free market proves the social problems and failure of diet, not the other way around.

Conclusion

Again, this isn't to bash the culture in the hood, there are some good things about it too. But it's to recognize that there is a problem that can be addressed, if we care enough about these kids to admit the problem. If you want to help, you have to address the problem with the culture/parents... and even teachers, and liberals in the communities that don't hold the kids accountable for their actions, which sets them up for failure their whole life.

Poor
We have the richest poor in the world. Having done a fair amount of social work (and being in many "poor people's" homes on cases). Many of our poor struggle over issues like whether they should drop their cable TV or go out a few times a week less. While much of the rest of the world's poor is struggling with buying shoes or getting up to 2 meals a day. more...

Welfare
Johnson's "War on Poverty" had welfare as the front line. Welfare paid people to not work, not get married, and have/keep kids out of wedlock -- and it punished people that tried to get off of it. Shocker of shockers, you get what you incentivize, and welfare got more people to not work, have kids out of wedlock, and it hurt the kids, families, and society at large. Once trapped in programs hard to get out of, the dependency class resented the masses for not giving more, and the masses resented them back for being irresponsible: it drove the wedge between the classes far deeper and divided us more than ever before. Poverty, single parenthood, gangs and crime went UP tearing the fabric of society, despite trillions of dollars poured into it. But the important part is the left won the votes of the gullible (like Chickens voting for Colonel Sanders). more...