What you say is true, there is some genuine poverty, like everywhere, but much of it's self-inflicted, drugs, jailbirds, people do all kind of things to themselves to inflict financial damage, even tattoos can cost you big time. The company I work for refuses to employ front-line staff with tatts.
With stockmarkets and property up, people have more money than they did a few years back, personal debt in the USA is the lowest it's been for 8 years and increasing, and govt. debt is decreasing.
If gold plunges, even Albanian Pesos will look attractive.
