Causes of poverty

Great ledes of our time, from Helsingin Sanomat (fi): "A majority of Finns thinks that the cause of poverty is that a person is unemployed or has a too low salary." It seems that most Finns have firmly grasped the link between not making much money and poverty. No wonder we rocked PISA.

More seriously, the study (fi) that prompted the article looked into whether people attribute poverty to individual, structural, or fatalistic causes. According to a 2005 survey, most blamed poverty on societal structures, fate, and poor luck. Few think poverty is about laziness or lack of will.

I'm not sure why you'd want to set these causes against each other. Surely the correct explanation includes a bit of each.