There's some truth in it though, which is that there's a common pattern where formerly poor people, upon achieving higher income, keep their habit of spending e

There's some truth in it though, which is that there's a common pattern where formerly poor people, upon achieving higher income, keep their habit of spending every last cent that's coming in, just now also on nice things in additon to necessities, never accumulating any reserves. Their buying decisions seem to be locked in an algorithm "do I have the money, yes or no?" where someone with saving ability would ask themselves "do I want to spend that amount of money?" But I suspect that this might be more common amongst those that rose from low but not very low income, I could imagine that the group of people who rose from extreme poverty contains a considerable number of people very much able to save. It's certainly not the only reason for poverty to exist. But if the poorest person you know is the high(ish) income/spend it all kind, I can easily see how you'd come to the wrong conclusions.