WE OFTEN think of poverty as a condition visited on the poor by nameless social forces. Poverty appears in government statistics simply as the “status” of certain people, disembodied of its causes. The view that the poor are passive victims of conditions is valid mainly for the elderly and disabled, whom society does not expect to work. It is implausible for families headed by working-aged, able-bodied adults, who today comprise a majority of the poor. For these families, the immediate cause of poverty is often that their adult members do not work normal hours.