public assistance can never raise a famiy out of poverty. By definition, anyone who qualifies for public assistance is among the poor.

But that's not what public assistance is for. Public assistance is the safety net that minimizes any suffering from being poor.

Certainly any program of public assistance would be wise to be implememnted in a manner that would be an incentive to, not a deterent from, financial independence.

But, complain as you may about the way that liberals such as you set up the public assistance programs....:^)...one reason why many private assistance programs still have a better success rate with raising the poor out of their poverty is that private programs can interject reward for behavior into their programs. You'd have to be pretty blind to not accept that the majority of true poverty is directly a result of lifestyle and behavior.