Ben Carson, the head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, faced an intense backlash on Wednesday for calling poverty “a state of mind.”

Mr. Carson, who oversees a department that handles housing for millions of low-income Americans, made the comments during a radio interview on Tuesday with Armstrong Williams, a friend and conservative media personality. During the talk, Mr. Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, said he thought some people were poor because of their outlook on life.

“I think poverty to a large extent is also a state of mind,” he said, according to a transcript of the interview that was released on Wednesday. “You take somebody that has the right mind-set, you can take everything from them and put them on the street, and I guarantee in a little while they’ll be right back up there.”

He added that helping people may not better their lives.

“You take somebody with the wrong mind-set, you can give them everything in the world — they’ll work their way right back down to the bottom,” he said.