The economy's had a rough time since 2008, and the Keynesian shell game that followed that slowed the recovery immensely, but there were poor people before 2008, too - and there's something I used to say a lot back then - some people are programmed to be poor. You take away a rich man's savings, and check on him again in 5 years, he'll be rich again. You give a poor man a million dollars, and check on him again in 5 years, he'll be broke again.
There is definitely a pattern in spending choices. There are a lot of people who think that the more money they have, they more they can indulge themselves in spending, when what they should be doing is saving or investing. A $4 coffee every day adds up, and it's also representative of a hundred other little single digit dollar decisions that get made every day and every week. And then, of course, these same people will suddenly blow their whole wad once they manage to get their savings above some magic threshold. "Oh, I've saved $5000, I don't usually have $5000, time to buy a 4k TV - the best one I can find!"
This is what I meant when I would say "Poverty is, outside of genuine bona-fide acts of god, usually a mental illness."