"painfully poor" is a correct and usable phrase in written English
You can use it to describe something that is exceptionally low in quality or level when compared to something else. For example: "The child's performance on the test was painfully poor when compared to the others in the class."
Away from the glamour of downtown Kiev, much of the country is still painfully poor, and its middle class is small.
They account for only a tiny fraction of India's 1.2 billion people, most of whom remain painfully poor, but I focus on these Indian innovators because so many of them today are focused on making India unpoor.
As a result, the rich schools get richer, the poor stay painfully poor.
Well, the rich in America may not be getting richer during this recession, but it's painfully clear that the poor are getting poorer.
The only people more painfully aware are the poor saps you defeated.
But for poor Ethan, painfully handicapped after a sledding disaster, it's colder inside his house than out.
It made them painfully aware of the poor state of iPhone apps, particularly IM.
As for what to do, Taibbi called for prosecuting white-collar crimes and reassessing how painfully we police the poor.
As for widening inequality and disadvantaging the poor, it is painfully ironic that after 12 years of Labour rule, the gap between rich and poor is wider than ever.
The government, meanwhile, has said it has enough food stockpiled from two years of healthy harvests to prevent high inflation.In this section Railing against the wrong enemy The political storm A glint of sunshine It never rains Different approaches Crime and punishment Call a cab Reprints Related items Monsoon bluesJul 22nd 2009For farmers, the effects of a poor monsoon are painfully clear.
For all its jump scares and high-octane chase sequences, the film's most memorable moment is one where the demonisation of the poor is made painfully clear.
