One cannot help but conclude that poor people are poor precisely because of a lack of drive, intelligence, and knowledge. States harboring large populations of such people tend to be poor...and stay that way.
It’s a tough nut to crack.
They’re not educated, so they don’t drive their kids to be educated. Even if they do, their kids have nothing to look at as far as what an education gets them - there little rural town doesn’t offer much, so those who do get an education leave for a better place, leaving their hometown/home state in squalor.
WV, parts of VA, PA, OH, MI, and most of the rural South seems to fit into this trap.