Is Povety A Choice?

My family isn't the richest family in the world. My dad had been without a job for about a year and was sending out applicatons every day to try and find somewhere to work. We recently got extremely lucky. Right before his unemployment benefits stopped, my dad found a job and, after about a year of scraping by, we are finally financially stable. In the case of my family,  poverty wasn't a choice. We were not comfortable with worrying that the next bills wouldn't be able to be paid. In All Souls, on the surface at least, it seems as if the Macdonalds want to be poor and they are happy being there. Even though Ma can't provide for her family and they live off of wellfare she seems to get along with almost everyone and seems to enjoy talking to them. However, I don't think that she wants to be there. We could see this when Frankie left for the Navy and Ma was happy that he was leaving Southie. So, no, I don't think that povert is a choice. eventhough 15% of ll Americans live below the poverty line, I don't think that they want to be there. Parents don't want to have to worry about financial issues and they don't want to have to worry about how their kids will grow up. Poverty is just smething that people, unfortunately, fall into and because they don't have anyone else to lean on, they usually stay there and live depressing lives without hope of escaping.