Your perceptions are straight out of the 70s and it seems as if you are still using Reagan's "welfare queen" as your standard.
It's time for you to update:
A study published in 2008 showed that economic mobility in the U.S. increased from 1950 to 1980, but has declined sharply since 1980.[8] (
FYI, that's post-Reagan)
A 2013 Brookings Institution study found income inequality was increasing and becoming more permanent, sharply reducing social mobility.[9] 
(In other words, you can teach a man how to fish but he still might go hungry. 
Your platitudes do not apply anymore).
Socio-economic mobility in the United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-economic_mobility_in_the_United_States