When you don't have the means to get an education, you have to do your best. Many people out there have to drop out of high school to work and provide for their families and they often don't have the time to get a GED or finish high school.
I was just talking with a coworker yesterday about poverty. She started out on welfare and was raising three children on her own. She didn't have enough money or time to get educated and had to make do with a low paying job and little funding from the government. She and those like her who have little education often make poor life decisions because they don't know what is available to them. It becomes oppressive and breeds hopelessness. So many people in poverty are either depressed or angry. The angry ones sometimes resort to criminal activity to take what they need. The depressed ones fall further and further away from any chance of a better life as they settle into what they believe is all the only life they can achieve.
The coworker I was talking with is one of the few from the circle of people she grew up with who now has a decent job and good benefits for her family. She told me that she came to a realization that everything is a choice and she was making bad ones. How did she know this? Because she enrolled in the Welfare-to-Work program when it was still going strong. Through that program she began to realize how she could mold herself into the person she wanted to be, despite the hand that life had dealt her.
Today, there is a federal program that attempts to create possibilities for people who are traditionally in need of government assistance. It's called the Work Opportunity Tax Credit and it provides significant tax savings for employers who hire targeted job seekers from the following populations:
Qualified TANF Recepients
Qualified Food Stamp Recipients
Qualified Empowerment Zone Residents
Qualified High Risk and Summer Youth
Qualified Veterans
Qualified Ex-Felons
Qualified SSI Recipients
[see:
http://www.uses.doleta.gov/wotcdata.cfm - The site needs to be updated however]
But, programs like this are successful only if people know about them. Many large companies have entire departments responsible for maximizing tax incentives. But, smaller companies often don't know.
If we're going to blame people on government assistance, we need to make sure we've done our part to educate them on their options as well as tend to their emotional needs.