I believe it is. OECD considers this under the broad heading "intergenerational transmission of disadvantage". In a crude way, it is equivalent to saying that poverty is largely hereditary (sic). This, if the factors at play to break this intergenerational poverty cycle are things like IQ, scholastic performance and even basic literacy.
If the impoverished are living cortisol-stress-filled lives epigenetics explains the offspring to suffer the same physiological conditions. However, there are folks who have individually bootstrapped out of these conditions of inherited poverty (the so-called self-mades), but these breeds are rare. The vast majority of the poor continue to produce offspring who aren't given a chance to grow up on a stress-free environment.
Edit: I think I may have been hasty with my reply. You were talking of the impact of stress on causing individuals to make poor financial decisions. My reply went into cycle of poverty.
I was talking about both. That is, as I feel you also stated, poverty is a symptom. It is not a personal choice. Instead it is what happen when you subject people to stress, lack of hope, lack of opportunity, bad food, sub-par living conditions, violence, evictions, etc.
Long to short, you don't cure poverty. You aim to cure the things that create, drive and perpetuate it. And you certainly don't blame those caught in the cycle.
If the impoverished are living cortisol-stress-filled lives epigenetics explains the offspring to suffer the same physiological conditions. However, there are folks who have individually bootstrapped out of these conditions of inherited poverty (the so-called self-mades), but these breeds are rare. The vast majority of the poor continue to produce offspring who aren't given a chance to grow up on a stress-free environment.
Edit: I think I may have been hasty with my reply. You were talking of the impact of stress on causing individuals to make poor financial decisions. My reply went into cycle of poverty.