" Over the last fifty years, poverty has come to be seen not just as an economic failing but also as a moral one, prompting a pervasive suspicion that the poor are secretly living cushy lives on government benefits. A Pew poll found that wealthy Americans mostly agreed that "poor people today have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return. "

― Nicholas D. Kristof , Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope