If poor people can be fat, we need a different word for what people 100 years ago would have called "poor". Maybe "destitute" could serve this purpose? In any

If poor people can be fat, we need a different word for what people 100 years ago would have called "poor". Maybe "destitute" could serve this purpose? In any case, if you're poor, your time is cheap. This doesn't jibe with the claim that the poor lack enough time to, say, cook healthy meals for themselves. Poor people 100 years ago were poorer than most poor people today, and yet they largely cooked for themselves—and they were much thinner. What accounts for this change? My suspicion is that it's dependence without responsibility. A hundred years ago, private charities (which are accountable to their donors) were in a position to hold recipients of their largesse responsible for their actions. But such charities have now largely been displaced by government agencies. These agencies have been captured by special interest groups,† and charity has mutated into entitlements. As a result of receiving benefits without accountability, the poor have lost much of the knowledge needed to be self-sufficient, which motivates further intervention. It's the law of unintended consequences followed by iatrogenic escalation. †These interest groups are not the poor themselves, but rather those who speak for the poor. I think it's no coincidence that the former tend to vote for the latter. Political patronage is one of the oldest plays in the book. I'd guess you'll find the above narrative unconvincing, but I like how you think, so I thought it was worth a shot.