Your comment is kind of ignorant and insulting. I grew up poor, I'm currently poor. I grew up in a trailer park with a single mother. My mother is a social worker (she graduated from college while simultaneously caring for me as a baby, which I think is admirable) and worked for a non-profit, she raised two kids on very little money. She was/is a very intelligent woman.

I currently have a chronic illness, I excelled in school, graduated with above a 4.0 (from AP classes) and I recieved scholarships from nearly all the colleges I applied to.

Unfortunately I had to leave college due to a chronic illness, a lot of which can be attributed to early childhood trauma and inherited mental illness (from my father). I am in pain every day, and miserable every day I cannot work because I always thought I would be able to get myself out of poverty, but extenuating circumstances do not allow me to.

My boyfriend did not graduate from high school (he got his GED) he works full time at a restaurant, he is very poor. But he is no less intelligent than I am or anyone else who has had 'formal education.' He reads constantly, he just built his own computer, and he taught himself how to produce music. He would have no trouble grasping whatever 'concepts' you are referring to. It is condescending to imply otherwise.

Being poor does not necessarily mean you have 'little formal education,' and having 'little formal education' does not make you less aware of 'certain concepts' (I'm not even sure what you're referring to because you're not specifying anything, please elaborate).

People are poor for so many different reasons (that is what I meant to illustrate by describing three poor people, including myself, who are poor for vastly different reasons), it's ridiculous to judge them or their intellect for circumstances you do not understand at a distance.