These people blame Mr. Deng for the great disparities between the newly rich and the persistently poor.

These students had remained persistently poor readers, scoring poorly on speed as well as comprehension.

"The persistently poor readers have a rudimentary system in place, but it's not connected well," Dr. Shaywitz said.

After a decade of expanding services, a city report issued in July said the system "only exacerbates the problems of the persistently poor."

After additional training, another subject was classified as a good responder, while two showed a persistently poor response.

Members are persistently poor and experience high levels of joblessness.

In fact, only 5 percent of the population can be counted among the persistently poor.

About 150,000 of the workers are snake catchers, most of them in persistently poor regions.

Visual fixation is persistently poor and only about one third of these patients are able to fixate and follow.

They won't, for the most part, be the persistently poor, who are usually covered by Medicaid.