Existing is not living...and I stand by in most of the country you cannot live meaning able to pay for all basic necessities...and try being a single mother on minimum wage...
And here's where I'm admittedly somewhat heartless when talking about a political issue...because frankly allowing emotional overreactions to a few to damage the country as a whole is wrong in my opinion in terms of political thought. And my view on this is similar regardless of which party a particular issue may favor.
Do I feel for a single mother in such a situation? Absolutely. Does every single mother experience that because of poor decisions on their part? No, they don't. However...the reality is that society should not be promoting such a thing as the baseline, and making sure that such a thing is absolutely comfortably livable is setting it as a baseline. While not everyone in such a situation is there due to their own choices, making it far less sustainable through massive government assistance or mandate deters it.
The problem with Poverty and other such things is it's a self fulfilling issue. The more you strive to make poverty or bad situations not just livable, but comfortably livable, then the more you promote people being in that condition. Maybe it's a conscious thought, maybe it's coincidence, maybe it's unconsious, maybe it's laziness or perhaps contented ness or possibly bad luck (and the acceptance of that bad luck as being the norm). But however it may be, the more you enhance the "livability" of life in poor situations, the more you encourage those poor situations to propagate and expand.
The other issue is that actually ELIMINATING those poor situations is an impossibility due to human nature and reality. Our minimum wage is higher than it's ever been. Our amount of public aid, free/subsidized services, and assistance is greater than any time before. And yet we're still at roughly similar (and as you pointed out) higher number than in the past. Despite all our efforts it's not like this has changed and the call is simply for more, more, more.
No, not all American's are entitled to their own individual two bedroom apartment. No, I disagreed with Bush and the Republicans when they suggested every American deserves a house. Yes, you know what, there are going to be people in ****ty...****ty situations. Some of which completely, or largely, beyond their own control. ANd you know what, I'm in favor of some safety nets for those individuals. My issue however, as clearly evidenced throughout the years and even by your own statements in this thread, is that there is a dishonest and disgusting tactic by some who suggest that if you don't constantly say "MORE, MORE, MORE" that somehow you want none. My issue is that I believe there's a difference between a safety net, something to catch you when you fall to ATTEMPT to climb back up, and simply installing a hammock down there that one can just kind of hang in while it's continually attempted to be raised higher and higher. I disagree, entirely, with this ridiculous and impossible notion of attempting to essentially "eliminate" poverty or assure everyone has some sort of "livable" situation which, based on your description, is actually a comfortable situation sans significant, or even minor, sacrifices or compromises.
Now...if you want to simply, in a typical intellectually empty manner, decry me as "heartless" or go on some stereotypical hyper partisan anti-conservative rant instead of actually addressing what I say, be my guest. It simply highlights that your arguments is based off nothing but base emotional platitudes without an actual practical political or sociological application. If you disagree on specific points based on actual opinions/views backed by facts and prefer a different identifiable method, or a reason you dislike mine, then that's great. But it's see,img most responses is "grr greedy uncaring conservatives suck. People should be made comfortable because that'd be nice and stuff and well, um, just make 'the rich' pay for it somehow"