[gonvaled]

We are talking about different things: you talk about somebody alive today, but basically living in the past. His peers are those in times past, so he is as rich or poor as they were.

I talk about your average “very poor guy“ in a modern society: he is just poor compared to his peers, but rich compared to a lot of people.

But no matter who we are talking about: my point all along is that being poor or rich is a relative measure. To say that a person is poor, you need to state “compared to“. Usually we implicitely compare to the “average contemporary citizen“