Rurh says that people were a "better kind of poor" years ago. what does that mean?

Ruth is talking about Francis, a girl that she met at school. Francis was a different kind of poor, "back then it was a different kind of poor. A better kind of poor, but poor just the same. What I mean by that is you didn't need money as much, but you didn't have any neither." So, Francis never starved or really went without necessities but still had very little money.