It’s not just the private sector that works to funnel money to the top. The government also plays its role in ensuring that poverty is miserable and dangerous enough to make people desperate for any wage they can get, no matter how bad the working conditions. It’s not a coincidence that the bipartisan response to people refusing to go back to work was to cut unemployment assistance, and try to use poverty to force people to go back. The United States, as a rule, treats poverty as a moral failing. Even as it’s made impossible to escape, poverty itself is seen as justification for mistreatment of poor people. It also justifies poor working conditions and poverty wages, because if they “deserved more” they’d have better jobs. It’s a vicious circle designed to deflect attention away from the simple fact that poverty is a policy choice.