> There has always been poor people in {X} has been a classic dismissal throughout history - it was the excuse in Dickensian England also. What has more lever

> There has always been poor people in {X} has been a classic dismissal throughout history - it was the excuse in Dickensian England also. What has more leverage and potential for positive change is an analytic approach looking at multiple countries, quintile various income|asset bands, look at food and housing security in these bands, look at the movement from band to band and quantify what it is to be poor and how many are poor - look to the factors that cause or are tightly bound to being poor.