That is, like, completely fabricated. Far more people were poor under the agrarian system. Ever hear of the Dust Bowl? Okies?1. Yes.Are we being serious?
When did the poor become unable to tend to their basic survival?
WHY would they be incapable of tending to what humanity has managed to do for 20,000 years?
Is it because... (They're Brown?) What about the White ones? Do they get more or less basic survival subsidy?
2. Technically it's been a problem for at least as long as recorded history. In this country specifically it's become the omnipresent problem it is today because of the economic shift from an agrarian society to one based on providing services through specialist skills. In centuries past you could be dirt poor yet still have the land and knowledge to feed yourself as long as the climate, soil, and rich man remained favorable. Now you either have the fortune to be born with sufficient positive circumstances (such as good family or remarkable intelligence) or you don't.
3. See the above. Humanity has largely relied on an agrarian lifestyle to see to our basic needs. That is no longer practical for most of us. How many of the urban poor can just buy arable land and start a successful farm?
4. Conservatives have been the only ones to mention race in this thread so far. You say that it might not be fair to "white" people to the benefit of "black" people. I say that historical factors cause you to be the same ethnicity and you don't even know it. Your focus on the remaining physical differences and the legacy of bigoted cultural attitudes blinds you to your common descent. I wonder how many enslaved Africans you count as your ancestors...