Is Poverty a Choice?

It is too simple to say that poverty is a choice.  But also too simple to say that poverty is a status inflicted upon people.
I don't know what it is to live in poverty.  To speak honestly, I don't think most of the people at Whitney know poverty.  I'm sure it's there in some of the faces I see every day.  People don't like talking about it.  You see it sometimes when people get free lunches in the lunch line.  You see it when seniors wait for need-based financial packages.  But for the most part, many of the people who knew about and wanted to attend a magnet high school weren't the ones at the bottom of the socio-economic totem pole. 
So who are the ones at the bottom?  And why aren't they the ones trying to clamor out of their situation?  Well, I believe it is a mixture of many things.
Expectations, environment, and ability.   Those who are born into poverty aren't the ones surrounded by people who expect them to achieve academically.  They aren't expected to get a college education, or a white collar job, let alone a high school diploma.  Though these things serve to deter children born into this society from achieving monetary success, they aren't actual obstacles. 
This is one of the most unnerving things about the tendency of the poor to stay in poverty.  Case by case, many people have circumstances in which they can rise out of their situation.  Heck, the American dream is built on the idea that those who want to, can.  Public schools, government aid, capitalist economy.  Everything is made for socio-economic mobility.  But for the most part, it doesn't happen.
Before high school I would have attributed it to some overall lack of motivation and purpose.  Coming from my community, anyone who wishes to get an education and find a high paying job can.  Most people do.  But I started meeting people who didn't live in these communities.  A boy from the back of the yards who came from a family of seven and growing, with an untreated learning disability and no way to get his timid voice heard in a class of 40 and a school of 3,000.  He showed me that sometimes poverty isn't a choice.  But I know that one case doesn't show the truth of the whole matter.  It is too simple to say either way.