Poverty is a problem that affects the entire globe, and the United States is no exception. Reading, Pennsylvania, the site of our study, has the largest share of residents living in poverty in the United States according to Census Bureau data (Tavernise 2011). Since poverty is clearly a problem for its inhabitants, we will investigate locals' attitudes towards poverty. Elements that influence people's views on poverty include local context, political views, religion and education, race, gender and family structure. LOCAL CONTEXT In his study, Daniel Hopkins (2009) examined the effect that local context had on Americans' representations of poverty. He focused on two main visions of poverty: poverty in structural terms and poverty in individualistic terms. Poverty in structural terms is seen as factors beyond a person's control, such as a lack of jobs or part-time, low-wage jobs. Poverty in individualistic terms is seen as a failure of the poor themselves, such as lack of motivation, drug abuse or the poor not doing enough to get out of poverty. For his research, he examined two nationally representative surveys, the 2001 Poverty in America Survey (PIAS) and the 2000 General Social Survey (GCS). His results showed that people living in areas where large majority of the poor are white are less likely to attribute poverty to individuals themselves and are more likely to view it in structural terms (Hopkins 2009). This is consistent with past research that has shown that Americans view poverty in racial terms and see poverty as a situation that the poor shoulder. He also found that strong Republican areas view poverty more in individualistic than structural terms (Hopkins 2009). In the study... at the center of the article... Kathryn and Kissane, Rebecca Joyce. 2010. “Poverty and the American Family: A Ten-Year Review.” Journal of Marriage and Family 72(3):460-79. Hopkins, Daniel J. 2009. “Partisan Reinforcement and the Poor: The Impact of Context on Explanations of Poverty.” Social Science Quarterly 90(3):744-64.Hunt, Matthew O. 2004. “Race/ethnicity and Beliefs about Wealth and Poverty.” Social ScienceQuarterly 85(3):827-53.Prokos, Anastasia H., and Jennifer Reid Keene. 2010. “Poverty Among Cohabiting Gay and Lesbian Families and Heterosexual Married and Cohabiting Families.” Journal of Family Issues31(7):934-59.Robinson, James W. 2009. “American Poverty Causes Beliefs and Legitimation of Structured Inequality.” Sociological Spectrum 29:489-518. Tavernise, Sabrina. 2011. “Reading, Pa., Knew He Was Poor. Now he knows how poor he is." The New York Times, September 26.