b. In countries that have a Welfare State, the poor become dependent upon government handouts and lose the will to work.
Duncan ("Years of Poverty, Years of Plenty") has shown that the majority of people classed as poor at any given time will not always be poor. On the contrary, research by both the British and American governments has shown that poverty is something that tends to affect people at different times in their life-cycle.
For example, people can be plunged
into poverty by the death of the main breadwinner, or through the birth of children. As
their lives change, people can move out of poverty and it is generally untrue that the
majority of the poor are poor through choice.