Many have mentioned the obvious fact that poverty does not cause crime, but I say crime causes poverty. People who choose to break the law are in general poorer than the rest of the population because they are criminals not the other way around. In a free market people benefit from being moral. We make more money, have more friends, do better in general by being moral. Employers will pay more (Higher wages) for the same skills in honest people versus in dishonest people. Also people like to spend their money at businesses that are honest and do right by the customers, so money flows into the hands of honest moral people and away from dishonest immoral people. I work hard and am honest not because I will go to hell if I don’t but because I am a better person because of it or because of SELF INTEREST. I make more money, have more friends etc.. Being Moral, in general makes me better off. People who are not moral are worse off. Of course this does not apply to individuals, but to millions of people in general.
Also Poverty is relative. Relative to Africa we have no poverty in this country (USA). The people we consider under the poverty line have more material wealth than the average people in Europe ( see
Timbro )
Our poor people have more cars, living space, VCR’s Cell phones, MP3 players etc than the average person in Europe (I spent two weeks there last summer and believe me its just a little better than a 3rd world country compared to the USA). Europe is so poor compared to the USA because they are more socialist than we are. They have less freedom and thus they have less wealth (Ok I'll stop that is another question)