[Bjartr]

GP could have just said "poverty" and the vast majority of unconstructive discussion that has followed could have been avoided.

Instead they said "abject poverty" as an emotional emphasizer, and people rightly called them out.

[porridgeraisin]

Yep. A lot of such people use words in order to elicit the reaction a legitimate use of said words would get, because they don't want the usually more muted reaction/attention using the correct word would get.