Stories like this pop up all the time and they invariably backfire. Back in 1999 a Toronto rag ran a series of sob stories about welfare moms in an effort to swing an election but they had the opposite effect; one of the stories featured a welfare mom who had cable TV, spent $100 a month on phone calls and spent $25 to cash her welfare cheque at a Money Mart when the banks cash them for free. Another story featured a welfare mom who had five kids by four different fathers and never bothered to make sure they went to school.
I will never forget being behind a woman in line at the store in Chicago who bought Salmon and Beef for her cat when they told her she couldn’t get the catfood for stamps. Oh yeah, she had a cab waiting for her outside as well.