You could be forgiven for not knowing this is anti-poverty week. The poor, as we know, are always with us – which is great because it means we can focus on our own problems and worry about the poor's problems later. We can fight to protect our tax breaks, then get around to wondering about how easy we'd find it to be living on $280 a week from the Pollyanna-named Newstart allowance.

But it's not just our natural tendency to let our own problems loom larger than other people's. It's also that, as property prices make our cities ever more stratified, we so rarely meet people from the poorer parts of town. We find it hard to imagine how hard they find it to make ends meet, and to lift themselves out of the hole they've fallen into.

Why can't they work as hard as I do? (Short answer: because they can't find anyone willing to give them a job.) Why can't they budget as carefully as I would if I were in their position? (Short answer: you have no idea of how carefully they have to watch their pennies.)

The question we should be asking, but rarely do, is: why hasn't their luck been as good as mine? Why didn't they choose their parents more wisely? Why didn't they go to a better school? Why can't they afford health and car insurance? Why don't they have a few thou in the bank in case of emergency? Why don't they have well-placed relatives and friends to help them find a job or talk their way out of a problem with the authorities?