If we had a decent social welfare system, one that would actually get people out of poverty, it would do at least these three things:

1) Allow people receiving the benefits to accumulate savings- it's impossible to get out of poverty if you are not allowed to save:

2) Make two-parent families eligible for family assistance- if two-parent families are THAT important to making sure children are raised properly- and that is debatable at best- then the state should subsidize the preservation of ALL two-parent families.

3) It would end the adversarial relationship strict rules create between people on benefits and those employed to run the social welfare system- it's not a crime to need social benefits, no one should ever be shamed for applying for benefits they are eligible to, virtually no one who is obviously ineligible for benefits ever applies for them, and it's none of our damn business what size of a tv people on benefits have or what car they drive.

And this society needs to stop spreading the message that people who are on benefits are somehow stealing something from those whoa re lucky enough not to be, because they haven't and treating people on benefits as if they are morally inferior to those who aren't serves no decent purpose at all.