Are poor people poor because they chose to be?

A few years ago I was sitting in my Global studies class and a girl from the class raised her hand to answer my professor's question. The topic that was being discussed at that time was what were the reasons why people are in poverty. She raised her hand and gave an unusual answer. She said "Poor people are poor because they chose to be." At this point I thought to myself, are they really? I contemplated this statement for quite a while and here is my reasoning. There is a lot of opportunity here in America and if you're willing to put the hard work and effort into becoming successful financially, it's possible. I honestly don't think that all poor people are poor because they choose to be, I partially agree with the statement.
It's true, some people in this world complain and mop about how poor they are but when you look at what attempts they have done to correct the situation, it's a short list. There are people in this world that are just plain lazy to do anything and depend on the government to bail them out and complain when they are financially burdened. But I also feel that there are people int this world that work hard and put every effort into what they do and yet at the end of the day they earn a measly amount of cash. Now the question is, did they choose to be poor? They worked right? They worked hard and willing to sacrifice their strength to be prosperous. So why are they still poor you ask?
There are a few reasons I can think of at the top of my head. First of all, geographically where are they? This world is so imbalanced when it comes to the distribution of wealth. There is not a lot of medium earners anymore and certain regions of the world are being used by other nations and large corporations for cheap labor. Many jobs are being exported out of the country because it's cheaper their. There are not a lot of rules and regulations that is imposed in these countries. Companies don't have to deal with "pollution" and other problems that they face here. Secondly, are they just supporting themselves? The more family members you have the less income you will have. The world's population is increasing at an astronomical pace and the world's resources will not be able to sustain this burst in population growth. We are seeing it here today in the world. Many regions of the world, people have way too many children and can't afford to feed them all. Depending on the amount of money you make, it's sometimes may be difficult to provide your children with the basic necessity while maintaining rent and other vital bills. For this reason, I think people are poor.
But you can argue this thoughts. You can say that they shouldn't have had so many kids and they should have had a better education or they should have moved to a different place. But then you can also say that they didn't have a choice. They were born there and raised there. There so many arguments to this. People are poor because they choose to be......Did they choose where they were born? Did they choose to be a son or daughter or a poor parents? Did they choose? Or were they just given what they had?

Tell me what you think, I may be wrong but it's a blog so there are suppose to be opposing opinions.