Those poor, poverty-stricken staff you see camping out around Central on Sundays are the domestic helpers of HK's middle and upper classes. They have sent most of their hard-earned pay back to support their families in the Philippines (if you go to Causeway Bay, most of those you'll see there send their money back home to Indonesia).
Yes, people in HK do tend to work long hours for what looks like ridiculously low pay by the standards of many western countries, but not only do they pay very little (if any) tax, if they are locals they are also eligible to apply for heavily subsidised housing.
I'm not for a minute saying there's no poverty here (I work with an NGO that deals with that sector of society), but the previous poster seems to have concluded that 1+1=3 from his couple of visits here.