I'm still wondering what welfare bread is., but you don't know the circumstances of what is going on. The car could have been borrowed, she could have had better circumstances until the economy crashed.

Depending on how old you are and how old your great grand parents are they never accepted a hand out because they probably wasn't a hand out. The social safety net that we know of happened after the Great Depression. But even during the Great Depression there were programs to try and get people working. For example there were a lot of work done on the public infrastructure and many of those jobs were created to help people work. Families were split up, people married at a very young age, kids went to work. And by kids I mean really really young kids.

Medicaid didn't exist until 1965. The Food stamp program as we know it didn't start until 1965 either. There was a pilot program that ran in the 30s but it was discontinued.

The economy sucks right now, ssome people have nice things because they bought it before they lost their jobs and what not. I know a couple who would love to sell their car and buy a cheaper one but they are underwater on their car and their house. So they drive the car and keep paying because it would cost them money to sell their car and get a "cheaper" car.