I have no idea why I got upvoted and you got downvoted, these are the exact same phenomena (a local maxima that's hard to get out of), just at different income levels due to different sources of unemployment benefits.
I grew up with help (food stamps, dried milk and government cheese and all that) and think it is needed... to an extent... but I also think that the incentives create a "wall" that's hard to get over where as you make more money, you make little more and lose a LOT of "benefits". You have to go from, say, $20k/year to 50k/year go not "lose" by working more - and that's a HUGE hump that a large number of people look at and say "Why?".
But I digress.
I'll make similar statements in different threads and get up voted or downvoted at seemingly random. The internet gods just aren't happy with me today.