Anyone who thinks benefits are "handed out like candy" should try to actually get them. Two years ago when my niece (39 year old single mom with two minor children) was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she had to quit her jobs and lost not only her income, but her healthcare coverage as well. No way could she afford COBRA (expensive as hell). Because of the job I used to have, I had some experience and familiarity with getting benefits for people so I took on the job of getting what benefits she was entitled to, in order to keep her and her children from being put out on the street to starve.
Anybody who thinks this is easy is fooling themselves. As to the healthcare benefits (Medicaid) there was a social worker at the hospital who was wonderful in helping us. There was a heap of paperwork, which of course gets summarily returned to you if anything is blank or isn't filled out to their liking. Usually there isn't an explanation, so you get to just try to figure out what the problem is and resubmit. First we had to get Medicaid for her, and then for the children. We jumped through many, many hoops. AND, we had to apply for Social Security disability for mom, so she could have a little money. THAT required another heap of paperwork, and copies of a zillion medical records. After answering about a million really dumb questions, like why she couldn't work with terminal colon cancer, we were successful, and she got the princely sum of about $700 per month. Try keeping an apartment and clothing for children, plus school supplies, etc., with that! And of course she lost her car. We also applied for food stamps and more papers, documentation, and so forth and we finally got food assistance for them. All of this took somewhere around 8 months, and in the meantime family was helping all we could. She finally had to move in with her oldest son, because there was still no way she could manage on what she was getting, especially as she got weaker. She died early this year, basically in abject poverty.
The safety net that is out there is first off, inadequate for anyone who has had a setback that prevents them from working, or from holding down a full time job. Secondly, it takes forever to actually GET into that safety net. (SS Disability was actually speeded up (if you can call it that!!) when SS became convinced she was, in fact, terminally ill.) Section 8 housing has a waiting list so long that our local office is no longer taking applications. And the other benefits are not instant, nor are they easy to get (especially for someone who is ill and can't get around, or who has no transportation, because they require you to go to various locations to apply, etc.), nor are they sufficient to live on. Had my niece not had family standing by and helping however we could, she could, indeed have ended up dying on the street, and her children could have starved.
Everybody who is poor is not so because they "won't try to take responsibility."
or theories about which direction the wind might blow with regard to the elections and economy. 
