The phrase isn’t “children who are poor”, it’s “children living in poverty.” Which yes primarily counts children living with poor parents, but could also count runaway children, children living as wards of the state in bad conditions, etc. Either way, it’s defined as children in living conditions that don’t have enough resources to meet a minimal acceptable standard.
I would look past the literal question in the parent, and think about the implications: Who provides for children? Why should they suffer poverty, having no power or responsibility for their own condition?
Dependents can certainly live in poverty - that does almost always indicate that the family unit as a whole lives in poverty but it does allow some differentiation for families that are struggling with debt but manage to provide a relatively poverty free childhood for their offspring.
We attach a dollar figure to make it easier to measure, but a different way to look at it is when your basic needs are not met (food, shelter) you live in poverty; you are impoverished.
You're getting downvoted for the joke, but in a way, yes everyone in the USA is supposed to provide for themselves.
Aside from a few demeaning and complicated government programs, the USA has only distributed resources through factor payments based on labor, or ownership of capital. Most of our programs aiming to help the poor only phase in after the poor have earned a certain amount of money through labor.
