Recently, I had read an article in The New City newspaper entitled, "Poverty is really a matter of choice". I found the article to be quite deceptive. Actually, I was dazed at the editor's justification concerning that poverty was a matter of choice. Solomon, in his brief anecdotes about his "poor" deprived friends was in fact, far from living in poverty. Also, in his next argument using the U.S and Canada's statistics, were found by me to be misleading to the reader. One last thing I would like to mention is on his statement that, "Lifestyle choices dictate income levels, not the other way around". But we don't choose to be poor. Solomon's explanations on choosing to live in poverty were very ludicrous and very unconvincing. His antidotes and statistics didn't help in convincing, but did a great job of trying to mislead the reader. We human beings, without a doubt, make decisions to our advantage, and never the other way around. So why would we want choose to live a life of poverty when we can live a pleasant life of wealth? Since I do not agree with Solomon's theory, I would not believe that people would choose to live in poverty. Rather, I believe that poverty is in some way controlled by the person's living environment, education, or maybe perhaps it's in their genes ever since the day they were born.
             Hillary, a hotel chambermaid, was described as middle aged woman "living in poverty", in the opinion of editor Solomon. Hillary is a woman who desires a life of simplicity, although not earning much as a chambermaid; she does live a stable and enjoyable life in one of British Columbia's picture book valleys. She may not have money for restaurants and VCRs. But despite of those facts, she is not living in poverty. The correct definition of someone living in poverty would be that one does not have enough money for their basic necessitie...