The title is a question. And the answer to that question is a big "it depends".

Being that this is the NY Times one always has to be guarded about potential ideological bend on articles. This is no different than watching Fox News vs. CNN. The bend here might be to somehow use some of these success stories to create support for our entitlement programs.

The problem: Culture and History.

A continuous stream of free money devolves a person into a state of mind from which it is hard to self-extract. By this I mean that free money forever and without any conditions creates, well, to put it simply, lazy people without any motivation. In that sense this kind of "help" is actually damaging to society, creating a whole layer of people with a perennial need for support.

And, in this kind of an environment criminal twists and turns also develop. There are plenty of videos on Youtube from people explaining how to abuse the system by, for example, having lots of kids in order to increase your monthly take. The damage to society from such behavior probably can't be measured. You have single mothers with a bunch of kids from probably different fathers --none of whom really care about the kids. The kids are seen as sources for money and goods. They live a crappy life outside any semblance of even a quasi-normal nurturing family. The rest is history: Whole layers of society stuck in a perennial muck of poverty, ignorance, crime and social mayhem.

We have tens of millions of people who have been on one or many layers of government handouts of generations. Generations. What we have accomplished with that is far from helping the poor. We have destroyed generations of people who would otherwise have certainly become very useful members of society.

Giving money indiscriminately, with no limits or conditions for years, for generations, is horribly damaging. It only exacerbates the problem and creates a perennial load on society at large and a massive cultural and, yes, financial cost.

And that's the culture and history. A lot of our poor have been living through various layers of handouts forever. And rather than helped them we have destroyed them as people.

To be sure, it is the responsibility of any modern society to look after those, who through whatever circumstance in life, fall on hard times. I believe, with passion, that it is absolutely important to have a way to help individuals and families. Long term help that isn't careful about devolving those being helped to the point of, effectively, transforming them into less-than-useful members of society, isn't good.

We have this problem.

The poor being highlighted in this article come from a very different frame of reference. They are struggling as few of us can possibly imagine. And in their struggle they work hard --very, very hard-- to provide themselves and their families with a meager existence. They are poor beyond most Americans comprehension, yet they maintain family units and live within the nurturing context families provide. They do not --for the most part-- resort to crime and will do almost anything and take almost any job to earn some money for their families. They are not out there buying iPhones, cars, fancy TV's, eating expensive and bad junk food. I could go on, but I want to be somewhat kind to the American poor, the vast majority of whom are nice people on hard times. Regrettably we have millions who are not.

When you take someone with the culture and history of this representative example of a Kenyan poor and, out of nowhere, provide him or her with a lifeline the results are bound to be very different. Of course they are not going to go out and burn that money on booze, TV's or other luxuries. That is not in their culture. They see this as an opportunity to make a real effort to intelligently better themselves. To improve their station in life and make an attempt to raise their family up a few notches from where they were.

This culture is very similar to that of the masses of immigrants who made-up the US as well as those who continue coming here. The story is familiar: They come here with nothing. Often even without command of the language. And, after a few years of struggling, you find them doing very well. A lot of them end-up owning small local businesses and some create huge enterprises. Their children are well-balanced, respectful and dedicated to academic excellence.

These poor and often uneducated immigrants almost always surpass our native poor in almost anything you might care to measure. Again, it is down to culture and history. Our poor don't have the drive. They lost it. And they lost it because we have been throwing money at them for generations. Immigrants come to our shores without any expectation of handouts. They land here already knowing that they are going to have to work hard and be relentless if they want to create a better life for their families. That they do.

If we truly want to help our poor out of the caves (Platonic reference, not literal) we actually have to cut back on aid in a reasonably staged manner to force them into an alternative life path. I am not proposing this is easy. Not at all. The sad reality is that this would be political suicide for anyone to approach, even superficially. And because of this we have millions of poor that, generation after generation, stay in the muck and are unlikely to get out. We need to cut off the flow of free money and put into place a system that slowly reintegrates those of able body and mind (again, able body and mind) into the productive layers of society.

Those with mental or physical ailments that prevent them from fully participating in society do deserve our help for as long as required. If a family exists then they would be expected to provide for them. Those without any kind of a support group would absolutely need public help for as long as required. We must keep in mind that we see incredible examples of what the disabled can do with great frequency. For example, there are disabled athletes that can do things most full-bodied couch potatoes in the US couldn't even dream of doing. We have to be very careful not to cause damage with handouts. I am not the one to decide where the lines are other than to say: Do not underestimate the power of a motivated individual to struggle and climb incredible hurdles to better themselves.

At some level I am speaking as someone who has been there. I had a massive business failure early in my life. I am quite literally talking about something that left me with almost nothing but the clothes on my back. The job market was horrible at the time, with hundreds of engineers lining up for every single available job. My response was to start a small business from my garage. Within two years I had moved out of the garage and was employing several people. I did not take any government handouts. I raised a few thousand dollars from family and friends and worked 18 hour days seven days a week for two years. I can't describe the sense of pride and accomplishment this sort of thing brings.

And, yes, while I am an engineer and far from being uneducated a struggle is a struggle. I know plenty of people with excellent educations who cave in when faced with trouble. I also have a very good friend from Israel who came to this country with no money and without even having finished high-school. He literally slept in his $250 junk car for six months as he launched into delivering small packages for businesses. He would sleep in the parking lot behind his customers businesses waiting for packages being ready for delivery at all hours of the night. He saved as much as he could and eventually got himself a newer car. Today he employs nearly fifty people, has a nice business a beautiful family and owns several properties. No education + No money + No handouts. Huge drive to succeed. Success.

We have destroyed our poor through mindless handouts.

Culture and History. Very important.