In a town hall interview for Sirius XM, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson said that poverty is more of a “state of mind.”
According to The Washington Post, Carson said that a certain “mindset” is a contributing factor in whether someone lives in poverty.
“I think poverty to a large extent is also a state of mind,” he told the host Armstrong Williams. “You take somebody that has the right mindset, you can take everything from them and put them on the street, and I guarantee in a little while they’ll be right back up there…you take somebody with the wrong mindset, you can give them everything in the world, they’ll work their way right back down to the bottom.”
The former neurosurgeon and one-time Presidential hopeful also said that a negative mindset is also a result of poor parenting habits.
“There’s also a poverty of spirit,” he continued. “You develop a certain mindset. I think the majority of people don’t have that defeatist attitude, but they sometimes just don’t see the way, and that’s where government can come in and be very helpful. It [the government] can provide the ladder of opportunity, it can provide the mechanism that will demonstrate to them what can be done.”
The interview was recorded on Tuesday (May 23) and it will be released in full later tonight on Sirius XM (May 24).