<\/a>In our recent poll* on how Americans feel about important political issues, we asked the question, \u201cIn your opinion, what is the primary reason why poor people in America are poor?\u201d<\/p>\n Given the choices, we found that only 9% of the 550 respondents said that the reason was because \u201cThey don\u2019t work hard enough.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>If we drill down deeper, we find that there is a significant difference in how members of our political parties view the question of why poor people are poor. Below is a comparative chart reflecting the responses of Republicans, Democrats and Independents.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Republicans (in red<\/span>) are eight times<\/strong> more likely than Democrats (in blue<\/span>) to fault the poor for being poor (24% to 3% on the chart).<\/p>\n However, this conclusion does not tell us why Republicans are so much more prone blame the poor. However, if we drill down further, we find that demographic factors are not nearly as important as political affiliation.<\/p>\n First, the difference between men<\/strong> and women<\/strong>:<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n While men are nearly twice as likely as women to blame the poor, this is not nearly as pronounced as party affiliation.<\/p>\n What about race<\/strong>?<\/p>\n