One of the worst and most persistent problems with public policy formulation in the United States is the fact that the assumptions underlying policy decisions are fundamentally wrong.
If those in poverty will not or cannot work, increasing wages, creating jobs and overall trends in the economy are irrelevant to their economic situation, except for the impact of those things on the amount of revenue that can be appropriated by the government and redistributed.
In some ways, it seems it is time to stop focusing on the poor, per se. Today the poor have many ways "up," but they can't be forced to want to stop being poor. Not only do we make wrong assumptions about how increased economic opportunity affects poverty rates, we blithely assume without real data, and no historical precedent, that those in poverty lack only economic opportunity, not desire to take advantage of such opportunity.
At some point, when society has removed all significant obstacles to the "flight of the willing and able" from poverty, it has done its job. After that, it is up to those who are willing and able to flee poverty to do so for themselves. And, in large part, they do; that's why the permanent underclass is becoming more and more concentrated, and why it is enlarging mostly by children being born directly into that permanent poverty.
Bottom line: poverty rates don't tell very much about the economy.
Jesus was right when He said “the poor you will have with you always”.
but they can't be forced to want to stop being poor.
True, to a large extent. There are many with criminal records who make a decision they don't won't to go "there" again, and so begin to make tracks with getting their GED, which is a vast improvement.
Not even truancy laws can help a child want to learn, especially if the parent(s) is not encouraging education as a near religion in the home.