Correlation doesn't equal causation.

It's definitely an important factor, but there are so many poor people and communities throughout the world that don't rob their neighborhoods blind because there are either severe consequences for doing so or they are part of a high trust society. (Think Denmark, Finland, Norway, Japan, etc.)

Literally, all the generational wealth and property built up over a century on my mothers side was wiped out in a few weeks in just one genocide. We don't get any of the usual sympathy either with charities, grants, scholarships, etc just for Armenians like specific other marginalized communities have here.

Are we stealing left and right from our neighbors because we are poor? No.

Yes being poor limits our options as it does mine everyday, but if you cant trust your neighbors or people in your community, it eventually breaks down beyond repair.

Poverty will never be entirely eliminated, hence strong robust social safety nets in places like Denmark, but those are places that are high trust because they have centuries of people living there with the same morals and values.

Danes trust their fellow Danes would never take advantage of the system. Us? We literally have 100s of billions of fraud during the pandemic loans and bailouts again that allowed major corps to buy their stock back instead of putting into the workers. (The bond across society is broken.)

We don't have what countries like Denmark do and probably won't for another 100 years and with Americans having less and less in common based on geography its gonna get worse.