Housing Secretary Ben Carson on
Wednesday described poverty as “a state of mind.”
In his position as the head of the
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Carson, a former
neurosurgeon, oversees housing for millions of low-income Americans.
During an appearance on The Right
Side with Armstrong Williams, Carson said that he believes some
people remain poor because of their outlook on life.
“I think poverty to a large extent is
also a state of mind,” Carson is quoted as saying by The
New York Times. “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. … 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.”
Carson's comments were quickly
criticized on social media.
“Huh,” Dictionary.com tweeted. “We
say poverty is the condition of having little or no money, goods, or
means of support.”
“I just imagined a few million into
my bank account,” user @Thomas_A_Moore messaged, “thanks Ben
Carson.”
Carson, who agreed to serve in the
Trump administration after losing the GOP presidential nomination to
President Donald Trump, was scheduled to address the World Congress
of Families (WCF), an ardent opponent of LGBT rights, as it kicks off
its annual summit in Budapest, Hungary on Friday. His name, though,
no longer appears on the
schedule.