Sakura, I believe it's our duty to help the most vulnerable in society too, I just have a slightly different idea of how to achieve it than you do. (and I think, of what constitutes vulnerability.)
If you want to teach a child to swim, you have to gradually let air out of the waterwings, whilst offering words of encouragement. You can be as encouraging as you like, but if you never let out the air, they sure as hell ain't swimming forwards, they are just floating aimlessly.
I understand very well how people get 'stuck' in a life of benefit dependency. It's ok for you to use the word 'stuck' because you are 'on their side' but when I used the phrase 'benefits trap' you and Riven were at me, because I am the big bad elitist wolf! It's very easy to assume that everyone who thinks like me has never known what it is to be poor or disadvantaged, or just plain average. That's a lazy assumption.
Neither I nor my DH come from a silver spoon background, though his spoon is quite good quality stainless steel, whereas mine is more your rusty old tin. You'll just have to trust me when I say I have NEVER been handed anything on a plate.
My DH works at MD level in merchant banking/investment banking. (but please don't make any wild assumptions about how outrageous our income is, because I'd hate to have to disappoint you. It's good, but not that good)
He has no degree. He started as a cashier behind the counter in a provincial high-street branch of Natwest, after A levels, 30 years ago. He is where he is, because he is driven, diligent and talented, and has worked incredibly hard. Not because he came out of the 'right' school, and Daddy had a word with an old pal at the Officers' Club....
He does a job which is pretty complex by anyone's standards and your average person on the street couldn't begin to grasp it in a million years, nor would they want to. Neither would they want the long hours, the pressure or the flack. Oh, but they want his pay packet.
And as Alouiseg pointed out, it's been a very long time since there was elitism in the city - it's an extremely egalitarian place - anyone can work there. It's no good people being jealous just because they didn't think of it for themselves! My DH could get jealous that he doesn't earn anywehere near as much as some half-literate 20 year old footballer, but then again, he never been that good at football, so what would be the point?
On single mums: I never said, (nor would I, EVER) that we should not help and support single mothers who have hit hard times through no fault of their own, or who become financially vulnerable through no fault of their own.
What I am saying is that in supporting them, and not stigmatising them, we have misguidedly created a burgeoning situation that is putting more children into disavantage than it is taking out. It's allowing people to apply an instant gratification logic to babies. 'I want one now, I'll have one now, I'm entitled, and I'll rely on the state to take care of the boring details, like where we'll live, and who will pay for us'.