In the same vein as Daniel's story: When I worked in California 2001-2002 I used only a bike to get around, so when I needed to go further than a few miles or needed to get someting large I would use a cab. I was usually driven by some afghans, but several times I was driven by an out of work electrician... He told me how he was laid off and he seemed relatively skilled based on the places he said he had worked before... He said how he spent all of his free time looking for a job, and how difficult it was- he asked me if the natinal lab I was working at had any jobs for him- I said I didnt know, but gave him the web address he could go to to find out.... He did go regularly to the library to use the computers to find job openings.... shortly after that he stopped driving for the cab company- hopefully that is a good sign that the address helped.

Tom, poverty is not always a personal failure... quite a few people are victims of bad luck.... some are victims of ONE mistake they made- one that drove them into poverty and they have no way to escape. As a kid I knew poor families, they worked harder than you could imagine, and lived in sqalor that would be hard for you to imagine. I have seen people with education fall on hard times and have a hard time getting out... you lose a job and then get hospital bills it starts to get pretty desperate.

I have known women that got married young, had kids and then their husband leaves them... they are trapped, they desperately want to get an education and give their kids a better lifebut they cant afford to.... one such case was a friend of a friend that really liked to visit and hear me talk about black holes and cosmology... she had never been exposed to such concepts and she seemed so interested she would have been an avid student- but she had an infant and could never afford the extensive daycare for her to get an education, or much of a job.

So, Tom, Did she deserve that? She made a poor choice by getting married early, to a guy that turned abusive and abandoned her.... she was probably raised to believe that was the thing to do... do you really believe that that mistake means she, and her kids, should be thrown away? After all, why should our nation waste its money helping her to become a contributing member of society... what would we gain?

Mostly poverty is due to poor circumstancers, and bad luck... toss in physical and mental ailments and you have a really deep hole many cannot escape.

But, I guess it makes you feel so much better to just believe its their fault... it means you are superior, they are inferior and you can blame them rather than try to empathize, or understand.

The poor often have much more strength, will and determination than the well to do... the problem is they have to work so damn hard to just keep from falling deeper into the hole that they have no resources left to try to climb out of it.

I have also known those that have given up... they didnt try to find work and were parasites that leeched from society... but when you label all or even most that are poor as victims of their own personal shortcomings you slander a great many good people... You have shown that you can think objectively, so seriously will you try to wrap your mind around that fact.

You could just dismiss the above as anecdotes I just made up, but that would be very wrong...they are the truth, and I cannot believe you have never known people that were in poverty that werent doing all that they could to escape and finding no success... If you havent known such people then you need to get out more often. Or maybe talk to the poor like equal humans more often. I have learned that you can learn a lot by talking to janitors.