What makes you in the poverty level? Why are you incapable of getting out of the poverty level? And why does that make you unhappy?

I've always been at or slightly above poverty level and I've never been ashamed to be poor or let it bring me down, and haven't received any disgust by anyone because I'm poor, although I had a friend who was extremely well off and rubbed it in my face quite often and would take me out to four star restaurants, forcing me to shell out almost $80 while I was unemployed because "she was in the mood for Italian". There were other reasons to end the friendship, but that was the tipping point.