Poverty isn't widespread?

Poverty is widespread, right? umm, no.
according to this goveronment analysis of how many people stayed in poverty for 4 years, we see that only 2.0% of the population stayed in what the govronment defines as 'poverty' for the entire period, as opposed to much higher numbers (12%) of poverty statistics for 'poverty per month'. But being poor for a month just means low income for the period, it does not prove impossible hardship.

Now let's examine the impact of life choices on poverty. Seems obvious that bad choices do, and should, lead to bad outcomes. So lets look at this table once more - among highschool graduates, a sustained 'poverty' goes down to 1.5%, and to 0.5% among people with one or more years of college.
Similarly, without work disability, sustained poverty level go down to 0.9%; since we do not expect the gov. to keep disabled people on the same standard of living as working people (that would be discouraging to working people), that is an important number. The number also goes down to 0.5% to 0.7% (with kids) in married couples.
Also it is 0.1% among 'employed fulltime' and 0.5% among 'employed parttime'.

I extrapolate a 0.1% or lower sustained poverty numbers for people who: graduated highschool, attempt to get a job, and don't choose to raise kids alone (or don't choose to have kids at the age of 25 or lower).