The poverty line (threshold) in the USA is much, much higher than the rest of the world. In the USA, you are consider poor if you make under $21,667 a year. Growing up in Peru $800 a month was consider a good wage. US government programs only push you back up to the threshold. There are very, very few truly poor people in this country.
Everything has a different perspective. Poor people here would be considered wealthy in other places. Poor people here have TVs, Playstations, cars, etc.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/povdef.html