optimising poverty studies

I often wonder about past optimisation decisions. The study of poor people was an early-career move in the two decades immediately after college. I think many people avoid doing this, because

(a) that is not an interest at all

(b) it is interesting, but they need security first, so understanding poor people is deprioritised

I think the whole point of being poor, is to lack options. So I think, it is more of an accurate study to be poor, without an option to step into richness at arbitrary points in the process.