Brah.

Like people in poor countries have a choice. How can you ask it living in a country with countless opportunities to get rich or at least live a decent life even if you work in a Macdonald's (considering you live in the US)?

Read this book if you want to know more: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty (2011), but basically when you don't have a good economy and government in your country, you just getting in a 'poor' trap and don't really have a choice but to work on a low wage job (considering you will even find a job because in a lot of countries like South Africa unemployment is around 50%).

And I'm not even talking about good education because people in poor countries simply start working from a young age and miss school (if they even have one) just to earn enough money for food. Interesting fact, when a child works on a physically hard job from a young age, his brain and body tend to get worse because he is still underdeveloped. Add lacking of food and sleep as well and you will get a perfect picture of why these people are poor.

Poverty is not a choice, it's how life works for these people.