Rick Santorum says stay in school, work hard, wait to have kids, and you?ll avoid poverty. It?s not that simple.

Noted: In short, it?s just not as simple as Santorum?s statement suggests. There are many factors outside a given person, from the job market to the size of wages to the quality of K-12 education that determine whether one can follow the three simple rules of graduating high school, getting a job and waiting to have kids. ?That?s a wonderful dream world,? Timothy Smeeding of the University of Wisconsin-Madison concludes. ?But it?s really hard to get from here to there.?