<p>Many experts argue that unusual social and economic strains have an effect on the popular beliefs about poverty. Public perceptions of poverty are relevant because they are assumed to have a significant effect on the legitimacy and viability of welfare policies, and they influence what people expect from the poor. This paper examines how poverty-related beliefs were articulated by respondents in St. Louis County, Minnesota, before and during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using cultural consensus theory and systematic data collection, the analysis compares patterns of shared beliefs across two independent cross-sectional samples collected in early and mid-2020 using identical instruments. Minnesota provides a distinctive context for this investigation due to its high overall living standards combined with pronounced racial disparities. The results indicate that the configuration and salience of poverty-related beliefs differed between the two survey waves. In the second survey, structural and fatalistic explanations were more prominent, while individualistic explanations were less salient. In addition, new poverty-related items—such as COVID-19, lack of childcare, and social isolation—emerged, and minority status appeared more frequently as both a poverty-related item and an attribution. Given the repeated cross-sectional design and small sample sizes, these findings should be interpreted as exploratory patterns rather than evidence of population-level change or causal effects. The study contributes to the literature on lay perceptions of poverty by illustrating how poverty-related belief systems may be articulated differently under conditions of acute social and economic strain. It provides a foundation for future research using longitudinal or larger-scale designs to assess whether such patterns persist beyond the initial phase of the pandemic.</p>