In life, there are certain necessities needed to live, such as clean water, air, shelter, food, and assorted other basic needs that go with these, in which all these things are basically necessary to sustain physical life, which fortunately are in relative robust abundance in America, but these things though they are necessities, aren't the other necessities that a modern society must command. That is to say, humans are far more advanced than mere animals, therefore because they have a mind, and hence the freedom to think, they recognize that there are necessities that exceed mere physical needs and have a lot in common with opportunity, fairness, and advancement.
America, for instance, is the richest nation in the world, yet, many parts of America, do not display that richness and that wealth, whatsoever, for there are numerous communities in which the people living there, suffer through dilapidated housing, no hospitals, forlorn schools and illiteracy, no job opportunities except of the minimum wage variety, minimal safety, unreliable transportation, exploitation, idleness, and are basically treated rather shabbily by the governmental safety net.
While these people, for the most part, have their physical needs met, in the sense that they are able to find food, water, and shelter, their unalienable rights to a real life, to unfettered liberty, and an opportunity to pursue happiness have been decimated. This means, that in any country as successful as America has become, it indeed has an integral duty to see that all citizens of its country, are accorded real opportunity on a fair basis, to be true beneficiaries of its success, rather than, treated as if they don't really matter and are a nuisance to the state in all of its many guises.
America likes to measure its poverty rate, from a strictly economic standpoint, that is to say, if your income is a certain amount and your family is a certain size, than you are eligible for this or that augmented assistance, and while that indeed has its place, real poverty encompasses far more than just money, it has a lot more to do with making sure that each citizen of America, has a truly fair opportunity to be actually educated, creating therefore the foundation of fundamental knowledge as well as moral structure which will produce far more good and viable citizens for this great land, rather than to cast aside certain citizens, and then try to placate them for life, by giving them access to food stamps, or housing subsidies, as if those are the essential and only necessities of real life.
Life is for the living, and those that live, to really live, must, especially in this age of the mind, educate their children, and while America spends an inordinate amount of money on the educational infrastructure, huge swaths of Americans, are effectively functionally illiterate, ignored, and forsaken. These people, and there are millions of them, need opportunity, and they need gainful employment, for without these things, they aren't really living, they are instead just one day closer to dying. It isn't good enough to simply try to paper over everything with money or bureaucratic social systems, for those that are most oppressed amongst us, deserve better, they deserve their fair chance at the American dream.