Governments can do nothing except exacerbate the problem, usually by equalizing the pain shared.
In a free economy, all economic actors can improve there lives thru serving other humans (work) and either saving or spending their just reward(money). Poor people will be around though, either because of unfortunate circumstances which are a part of life and can be mitigated in several LOCAL ways, or they choose to remain poor.
Central planning has never in human history worked to alleviate poverty, despite the siren call of its pseudo intellectual explanations.
Liberty and a free market are the supreme organizing principles under which the most humans are happy and wealth is maximally equitably distributed.
In the US we have highly controlled and regulated markets, gov enforced centrally planned price fixing abounds. It is a difficult environment for entrepreneurs to make sensible financial decisions in. Everyone is speculating. We have an Oligarchy and a Corporatocracy which force organizing upon us. Many Americans are suffering. 90 million not in the labor force, labor participation rate at 1968 levels, 50+ millions Americans on food stamps, this level of dependency I suggest is simply impossible to devolve to under a free market... Tent cities, municipal bankrupcties, Military Industrial Complex thriving, hypocrisy from bureaucrats galore.
All enabled by the Federal Reserve Banking system and the corrupted counterfeited Federal Reserve Bank note. Money is the lifeblood of a complex economy. Money enables the division of labor and escape from barter. For the 3rd time in American History a central bank has been granted a monopoly, the government grew to be a leviathan, and the people suffered under a cancerous lecherous power-hungry government. Our money is corrupted by government awarded monopoly. We don't need bureaucrat provided "solution" to government caused problems. As we read in Road to Serfdom, no matter how well intentioned, central planners just cant account for all market forces and so thus can never provide as efficient a solution as the free market can.
Government is not logic and reason, it is force and coercion. Is that the guiding light we should follow to reach Utopia? Force and Coercion??
Edit: The proper role of government is to protect private property rights, and the minority from the majority.