It seems that during earlier depression times when poverty was much more stark, you didn't hear about morals going out the window on a widespread basis just to "survive"...
I had a lib tell me once that most terrorism (and in particular the suicide bombings by Palestinians) is caused by poverty. I responded, "Oh, that's why kids from the Dust Bowl were blowing up buses in the 1930's." He didn't have an answer for that...But then, despite the fact that this guy had a medical degree, he was dumb enough to think that Israel regulates the amount of aid that goes to Palestine.