"Paying your own way" is only possible when you're given the tools early to be able to do so. People born into poverty aren't given access to the *opportunity* for the kind of education & training that would let them get out of it. (And that's before we get into the issues of racism and cultural bias that work to keep anyone who's not white and Christian from getting ahead.)
So according to your analysis, if you are born into poverty, you're too stupid to fight your way out, and don't have the brains to continue your education. Nice. And BS to your "cultural racial issues" Thats rationalizing. If you WANT and education you can get one. Unless you are too immersed in the culture of drugs and the easy life they can afford.
1) Sandwiches are one of the most expensive foods possible.
Really? Pnut butter and Jelly? Bologna and cheese? If you are THAT poor, surely you qualify for food stamps.
2) What oatmeal & sandwiches cost is
time. A single parent, working full-time or more, may not have those fifteen minutes every day. Not without driving herself to exhaustion, and I don't mean "missing a few minutes' sleep;" I mean "drove the car into a tree because she's been living on 5 hours sleep/night for six months."
So a single parent can't take the 15 minutes to feed their kid? You make a choice. A little sacrifice now to teach your child how parenting should be, or teaching them that others should do your job.
A lot of poor parents could feed their kids breakfasts & lunches
if they got to choose the schedule. But school schedules aren't built to work with job schedules; they were arranged on the notion that 1 parent would work, and the other would be available to ferry kids back and forth to school. And, of course, not have a job outside the home.
So, because you are a single parent with issues, thats an excuse to not make sure they have a decent breakfast or lunch at school?
No, but it is a right granted by all civilized countries, because they're aware that health is everyone's problem. If my kid gets pneumonia, your kid is at risk; if I have a cold for four months running, but can't afford health insurance so I just work through it, my entire office suffers. My work isn't as good, and everyone else is at risk for illness. Allowing poor people to die from bad kidneys or heart disease, when it's fixable with an available transplant, says "this person will never be worth $100,000 to the rest of society." And maybe that's true, in some cases--but believing it's always true, means losing out on some incredible people.
Civilized countries? You mean "Socialist" countries. And who is picking up the tab here? Those who work. And why should anyone work when they don't have to? How long can a shrinking middle class afford to carry the debt of everyone? The government does not and has never owed its citizens health care.
I hear the "I' have to work so I can't keep my kids home" argument just about every day. Meanwhile the kids are running fevers, hacking all over, throwing up, and guess what. They all eventually come down with whatever the one has. But I guess thats okay.
FDR's "New Deal" bailed out a lot of people. The
Works Progress Administration (WPA) saved a lot of people from starvation--and from it, we got Orson Wells, John Steinbeck, and thousands of ugly, functional buildings that are still in use today.
I believe you are talking about jobs? People working? What a concept. These were government created jobs, to be sure, but people worked, and took pride in the fact they didn't have to stay on welfare.
My daughter's college education is covered; Kaiser accidentally killed her father on the operating table and they'll be paying her a ton of money when she's an adult. However, they'll be paying her nothing in the meantime, so I get to hope that the slums of Oakland have schools and neighborhoods good enough to give her both an education and the attitude it takes to make it through college.
There's a lot of impediments to that pursuit.
Also, the "every man for himself" theory also means "if I'm strong enough, it's my right to take it." I notice you don't talk about millionaire drug lords as successful... but they are wealthy enough to have the house and lifestyle they want. Of course, they're criminals. But they also haven't been given any reason *not* to be criminals, other than "it would offend some people who don't give a damn what happens to me."