The first myth about poverty is that poor people refuse to work. According to E&Z, there are about 30 million poor or near-poor people who work. The problem is low wages. A full-time minimum wage worker earns only 82 percent of the poverty level for a family of three. Also, many of the poor are either too young, too old, or too disabled to work.

The second myth is welfare dependency. In 1996, congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which mandated that welfare recipients find work within two years, limiting welfare assistance to five years, and cutting various assistance programs targeted by the poor. This has drastically reformed the welfare system. But before 1996, welfare only accounted for one-fourth of the income of poor adults. About three-fourths of the poor also received some type of non-cash benefit, but only 40% received cash welfare benefits. The poverty population also changes, meaning people move in and out of poverty every year. Although welfare benefits were much more generous than they are now, they still fell short. Lastly, contrary to the belief that welfare mothers keep having children to "milk" the welfare system, studies show that a number of recipients bring in extra money from various activities.

The third myth is that the poor get special advantages. According to E&Z, these subsidies amount to much less than the more affluent receive, and recent laws have reduced them more and more. Most importantly, "the poor pay more than the nonpoor for many services." The urban poor find that their money does not go as far in the inner city. Since they are too poor to pay for transportation, this creates a monopoly situation for neighborhood stores. They raise their prices, and as a result, the poor pay more. Some services, such as banks, offer special programs for poor people, but at much higher costs. The poor pay more for commodities and services in absolute terms, and a much larger portion of their income is used.

The last myth is that welfare is a black and latino program. While poverty rates are higher for African Americans and Latinos, they do not make up the largest part of the poor. Whites are actually the largest group in the poverty population.