poor as a church mouse vs poverty-ridden

poor as a church mouse

adj
  • Very poor, to the point of starving or begging; utterly destitute. 

poverty-ridden

adj
  • Suffering from poverty. 

  • During which one suffers or has suffered from poverty. 

  • Filled with or plagued by poverty. 

How often have the words poor as a church mouse and poverty-ridden occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )