From my experience, I think a lot of people who are born into poverty and who essentially live off the government almost get accustomed to it. If a person can make minimum wage and get their housing, food, and other expenses subsidized then why would they want to try and better themselves? Creating more income would just remove those benefits and in their mind they wouldn't be any better off because they would have to pay their own rent and other bills. From age 16 to about age 26 I worked for a drugstore in a very low income area in North Huntsville. I didn't really know about section 8 or food stamps before I started working there but just about every employee who worked there was on some sort of welfare program. The employees would openly talk about it as a way of life and not something they wanted to move out from under. They talked about having another child so they could increase their food stamps and overall welfare dollars. Why try to better yourself when you're getting money from several men who you have children by (not through the court system but under the table so not reported on tax), free rent, subsidized utilities and a big bonus every year during tax time? Granted this is just from my experience but it always seemed to me that the folks on these programs would rather stay on them than to work twice as hard and make it on their own. Welfare programs should have some kind of limit on them. If a person is getting their food and housing paid for over 10 years something is wrong there. That was the case during my time working at the drugstore for just about every employee..