Your last paragraph is interesting. Never quite heard it described that way, but it makes a lot of sense. You drawing from any sources in particular for that?
This is the impression I have reading reportage from writers like Chris Arnade, where it seems like the poor and the majority of those writing about them are speaking at cross-purposes (not Arnade, but others in the genre of 'explaining the left-behinds'). I have heard that a similar argument is made in the book Seeing Like a State, which I have put on my reading list.