I'll start again. Don't think the last one went. These things obviously interact with each other, but if you fix the easier ones, through education, supplementation of working people's efforts, easier transportation to work, protection of workers' rights, environmental protection (all without choking the economy)...things will improve to the point of only having to have society take care of the truly intractable poverty situations. Obviously the infirm, the elderly, children, certain types of handicaps will always have to be taken care of, and can be taken care of and jobs provided to the currently unemployed through good programs.

Anyway, root causes.
1. Geography. Lack of natural resources of agricultural land, water, sunshine. And here in America,and here in Washington state, we sit on the most beautiful land inthe world and what do we put on it? Junky beige houses that could be grazing cows or growing oats or something. Need to be incentives or zoning or laws to protect all agricultural ground for agriculture. Similar for woodlands. Encourage movement to rocky areas for housing. Build out of rocks, all over America. Fireproof, tornadoproof, bug and mold proof and provide jobs to poor areas, which almost always would have rocks and more rocks and sand.
2. Too much population for the immeidately available resources. That could be a city, a country, a world. A family. Teens especially having children strain the resources of a family and a community. This causes so many problems they can't be counted. It is irresponsible for a society to allow its teenage girls to get pregnant through abusive situations or to run so unfettered that they will follow nature's imperative and get pregnant voluntarily. I am mostly referring to the way younger teens. Likewise, any woman having children without benefit of a husband does great financial damage to herself, to her family members, to her community. She deprives a child of at least 50% of potential support, and 50% of extended family usually. This is an incalculable burden on society, and a tragedy for the child involved, often, but not always. Some truly don't notice the difference of not having a father, and some are born with a broken heart because they don't. Am I blaming the teens or unwed mothers? No. Am I blaming those who won't put the mildest of disapprovals on this behavior, even less than they would for those say using plastic rather than paper bags? Yes. (and paper bags cause bad bad problems in landfills, probably worse than plastic).
3. Bad bad awful education in the public and private schools, where the differing capabilities and backgrounds of children are not taken into account, where the needs of those not college bound are totally dismissed. So little vocational education, when if it was mandatory for each and every student, it would prevent many dropouts, and insure that each and every American would have a skill to support themselves in hard times even if they thought they would never have to cook or type...I can not say enough about how serious this is.
4. Exploitation. People will take advantage of poor people, but I don't think there is a group of the high and mighty looking for ways to keep people poor, or hope that they stay poor. Capitalism works best with a flexible, educated and capable workforce that will have other opportunities and so the bosses know they can walk away to something better. I honestly don't see deliberate actions of the ruling classes trying to keep people poor. I feel they would rather poor people just would go away. I think there is no benefit to anyone to deliberately having poor people as a pool for something or other, except as said recently, to serve in the military so their own sons and daughters will get excused.
5. Outside threats. It is true we could build x number of schools and clinics instead of 1 B1 Bomber..but the world is so dangerous we must find ways to do both. The highest and most necessary social and health service a government must provide is to protect its citizens from attack. It would not be pretty, trust me.
6. Drugs. Huge amounts of money diverted. Whole neighborhoods and cities unsafe. This of course means companies don't want to move there and hire people. Leads to all sorts of gang fights, people afraid to leave their homes, difficulty to and from work. Horrible horrible problem. Anyone taking public money in any way, public schools, state colleges, public housing, heck a library card, should be screened for drugs. No privacy afforded to them. THis leads to housing problems...if you have a young man or woman who is clean and sober and wants to work in another city, someone has an aunt or grandparent who could put them up and they do yard work in exchange for a while. Can't do that with the threat of drugs...no one is safe.
7. Other social issues. Generational poverty. Lack of fathers...oh that is so huge a problem...one of the functions of the father has been to control his offspring....now they are running loose in gangs and with their cell phones they are meeting and doing great disservices to neighborhoods....I'm not saying none of them have fathers, but there is a collective effect.

Where would I start: Drug screening, having each and every teen meet with a nurse about family planning, hopefully after marriage and way in the future. Vocational education for every single student, including those with the Harvard aspirations. More lighting in rough neighborhoods. More video cameras in public areas and by convenience stores and other likely targets. Provide those places with loud sirens and direct lines to police station, perhaps monitor at the police station a group of buildings and intersections, like private security firms do.

Certainly programs to supplement those who are working already, with childcare, family planning, transportation, safe and clean public housing. Better care of the handicapped. Respite care.

Also, we have to have figured out by now that we need bunkhouses or some safe, clean, minimalistic shelter for single men and women, probably more men. Concrete, steam cleanable. Segregated by if they have problems...violent ones under strong security. Ordinary down on their luck one category. Mentally ill but not dangerous in separate facility with some support services.

No not ever giving social security to people who are drug or alcohol addicted. Give them hospice care and an allowance for an occasional new shirt and haircut, but not money. Food and shelter provided somewhere.

WPA type jobs for those who find it difficult to go through the job seeking process. Many people could and want to work, but as mentioned in other threads, do not know the process, are demoralized, etc. These could be in child care, elder care, facility maintenance, gardening, office work, safety patrolling of neighborhoods, escorting children to schools safely, and hopefully would lead to other opportunities in education and employment for people.

Have plans to take back the scary neighborhoods and housing projects. Read how the other half lives..life in New York tenements turn of the century. They said when the Germans came to a hopeless neighborhood, they turned it around. They put flowerpots int he windows. They put matrons in the tenements to keep an eye on things..we need way more eyes in some of these places, and way more daylighting so people can go to and fro without threats.

Well, that is all for now. Straighten up some easier problems, do not give people a message that it is all hopeless, go ahead and do drugs because there is no job in the world you will ever ever get, oops you have one flipping hamburgers, not good enough....there is still no hope...nonsense...give them messages of hope and pathways of education etc. that they can follow. It is called community colleges for those who are not severely handicapped in various ways....mg