Public misconceptions shape views on "deservedness".
From: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3726
"It’s a contrast, says StephenPimpare, a Yeshiva University historian and author of A People’sHistory of Poverty in America, that
taps intovery old American notions of what distinguishes the deserving poor fromthe undeserving poor—trying to distinguish those people who are poorthrough no fault of their own, and therefore deserve our sympathy andour assistance, and all of those other people who are poor becausethey’re stupid, because they’re lazy, because they have too many babies.
Yet, he notes: “The people who are becoming newly poor from being laidoff from businesses that are failing are not different than people whowere laid off two years ago. The only thing that’s unusual about it isthe scale.”