Ideology and the Experience of Poverty Risk: Views About Poverty Within a Focus Group Design

This study analyzes the tension between ideological individualism with regard to views about poverty, versus the high social risk of poverty that prevails in the U.S. Because of this tension, we anticipate fissures and caveats to individualism, contingent on the individual's direct experience with poverty. Eight focus groups comprised of 80 individual respondents are interviewed across three communities in upstate New York, and the analysis confirms that individualism is the dominant attitude toward poverty. The article also identifies significant challenges to individualism, and that social stigma is a defining element within the experience of poverty.