Adverbs position in English: “place–manner–time” or “manner–place–time”?

Solution 1:

In British English the standard word order for adverbs in end-position is manner-place-time(easy to remember as the initial letters are in alphabetical order m-p-t). However, to avoid too many adverbs in end-position and for emphasis I would suggest to put the adverb of time in front-position. This sounds much more fluent - although I must admit I'm German myself ;)

Solution 2:

Adverbs of time do go last, something both your references agree on. For adverbs of place and manner, I believe there is not a general order that is usually followed in English. Consider this Google Ngram showing that stay at home alone beats stay alone at home, but not overwhelmingly. So this example weakly supports the place, manner order.

On the other hand, stay late at work beats stay at work late, but again not overwhelmingly. This is weak evidence for manner, place.

For the OP's question, my opinion is that "in poverty" should come first, because for this example, it is a more important adverbial clause than "in America".

Solution 3:

Although 2 years have passed since your question, I have just found in a grammar book of mine that the right order is Manner-Place-Time. If the verb of the sentence is a verb of motion then the order changes to : Place-Manner-Time. For instance, "he goes to his office by bus at nine o'clock."