The poorest people I have ever seen was in Chad. People I once have stayed with for a night in an American (not: USA) reservation were rich in comparison. The poorest German too is rich for them.

No money for the bus to school? There's no choice because there's no bus at all and what prevent children to go to school for months (before the rain comes) is hunger. They don't have the physical energy to move. And if they still can, sitting all day on the hard floor and doing rote learning (no books, no pencils, no paper) is too much for them.

The Wiki article on poverty in the USA (sorry if I have overlooked someone else linking to this) has some good thoughts about absolute and relative poverty definitions.

Nevertheless, even if someone is subsidised to be "rich" by a Chad perspective, there should be in Western countries (except inability or a lot of young children to look for) no need for such subsidies, but work and wages (high) enough for everyone to be over an absolute poverty line.

Wolfgang