Having grown up relatively poor (single-mother, section 8 housing) I read it as the commenter saying there is a mindset that accompanies poverty that you can only experience and appreciate having been poor. Not that the mindset causes poverty. This is true, in my experience.

How can someone read the post's article and write GP's comment, I wonder.

No

No, they correctly identify it as learned helplessness which is a real behaviour common to many animals including humans. If you experience repeated misery, set backs, abuse, discrimination, and even just bad luck it conditions you to believe that no matter what you do you will always fall victim to the worst outcome so you just give up and stay where you are and endure it the best you can. That is not saying that the reason people are poor is due to that conditioning, it’s saying that they were conditioned to act that way because they were poor and now even if you provide them a way out they are so beaten down and demoralized that they will just stay where they are and not even try. It’s almost impossible for people who have not experienced that level of abuse to imagine what this feels like or follow the reasoning behind it.

Agreed. That's the conclusion I drew from my experience. It was painful to watch.

It is how I learned how people rationalize their world and the things they experience into some kind of logical end they deserve.

I would never say mindset is what makes a person poor.