This is the crux of the matter, that life long poverty, and having to make decisions that any food, is better than no food, and stretching the money and food you have is a main priority, to the basic human condition. You see fairly quickly that the stress of daily worry about food, shelter, and work in the cycle of poverty, takes an inordinate amount of time, and energy, and adds years of stress to the life of a person living basic hand to mouth existence.

Blaming the poor for being poor, and being complacent, and condescending to the conditions of the poor , is the root of many revolutionary overturning of power. Remember the French Revolution, see what caused it, we are dancing dangerously close to something similar here.

The political rhetoric is just noise to any real actions or change. Cutting programs, and not making real change is going to cause a backlash of epic proportions!