[reg45]

When you define “poverty” as the lowest quintile of household incomes you will always have about 20% of households in poverty.

[17th Miss Regt]

When you define “poverty” as the lowest quintile of household incomes you will always have about 20% of households in poverty.

But by increasing the income level in the quintile you can shrink the quintile to only 5 or 10%.

"A word means exactly what I mean it to mean, neither more or less!"

[okie01]

When you define “poverty” as the lowest quintile of household incomes you will always have about 20% of households in poverty.

When de Toqueville toured the USA in 1831, he observed that, despite the universal opportunity presented by open land and a free market, approximately one in seven households instead chose to live in poverty and squalor.

From that time forward, the proportion of households making this perverse choice is fundamentally unchanged. Those living in involuntary poverty come and go from the statistics, but the core group remains mired in the swamp -- having found it easier to live on the dole than to work their way out of it.

Accordingly, the problem isn't defined by a "lack of opportunity", it's "human nature".