Child tax credits are fine, but if you don't make enough income to owe taxes in the first place they don't do squat for you. It's a credit, not a payment. The l

Child tax credits are fine, but if you don't make enough income to owe taxes in the first place they don't do squat for you. It's a credit, not a payment. The lowest wage-earning parents get benefit from them. Social housing is a different story. Where I live, it's notoriously hard to get into (waitlists of 8 years or more), has strict income requirements (get a raise? lose your home!) and is often poorly maintained because anti-poor city politicians wont make the investments necessary to improve and expand it. Most other programs that we're told exist to help the poor are similar. They're limited, means-tested, complex to apply for, and often still short of what's needed.