squeak,
Why should I work so hard and have no disposable income while this guy [on government assistance] gets to take it easy and have everything I have plus more?
Aha! Thank you for this speculative answer. This is the type of answer I was anticipating from zahavasdad to my question, although he refuses to answer me. My response to this line of thinking is that its root is a sentiment (born partly from Puritan theology) that effort and wealth are directly proportional. This sentiment has some good to it: it is motivational and a pillar of the American Dream. But it also can result in an attitude towards poor people that their poverty is their own fault. Because if they just work harder, then they wouldn’t be poor. And the fact that they take government assistance instead of lifting themselves out of poverty by their own bootstraps demonstrates that they are lazy. This may be true in some cases, but it is certainly not the rule.
If I see people on government assistance driving a Lexus, I can make a number of either favorable or unfavorable assumptions based directly on the observation. They were recently well off but fell on hard times, the car was a gift, they have poor budgeting/spending habits and therefore bought something they couldn’t afford and are hurting for it, they have poor impulse control, they have deep insecurity and desire a fancy car as a status symbol, they stole it, they’re kleptomaniac millionaires who hid their wealth from the government because they love Medicaid more than their employer’s insurance benefits, etc. etc. But lazy? That not logically follow from seeing a Lexus. That assumption is born through the prejudice of the observer.