America has a wonderful Constitution as well as an enlightening and inspired Declaration of Independence, in which, if the legislators, the judicial branch, and the executive office, actually paid attention to the spirit and principal of these seminal documents, this country would indeed be a different and far fairer place. However, the truth of the matter is that America has entrenched vested interests that will cede no ground, which are extremely powerful and duplicitous in their ways. These institutions are gifted at putting together words and even policies that seem fair, reasonable, and equal on paper, but in application they are anything but. In point of fact, incomes, employment opportunities, education, healthcare, housing, are widely divergent in America, to wit, some people are dealt such a poor starting hand, that they really have no opportunity, whereas others are given a marked deck, assuring them of both present as well as future prosperity.
Take, for instance, our social welfare programs, begun essentially with vigor during FDR's "new deal", and reinvigorated during LBJ's "great society". You would think that with all of these programs, all of these geniuses running such programs, and all of the wealth that America has, that in America, poverty, would simply not exist, and opportunity, would be abundant for all seeking such, but this isn't close to the truth. Further to the point, the American power brokers have determined, that because there are so few, that have so much, and so many, that have so little, that in order to control those at the bottom, without actually making it rather obvious that they are using the awesome force of the state to do so, social welfare programs are in the evolution of fundamental change that will essentially take care of controlling the masses, by providing them with basic human needs in return for their good and compliant cooperation with the state.
This government, literally hands out billions upon billions of dollars on social welfare, in which the most important cut is to the very people that coordinate and implement it, with the implicit understanding that their continued cooperation with state goals and state desires, must be their first objective, so that, their main concern is not actually service to their constituents, but in actually, obedience to the state, in order to maintain their middle-class life and status. In contrast, the recipients of social welfare, are being pushed more and more and boxed into a quid pro quo basis, that is to say, as long as they are willing and actually do perform their duties and obligations per convoluted governmental regulations and confusing paperwork they will continue to receive their benefits but if not or if targeted, they will be subject to investigation, or sanctioning, which will result in the loss of the very benefits that they need in order to live. This means, in actuality, visits at their place of residency are at the state's discretion, random drug testing at the state's discretion, child welfare judged at the state's discretion, questioning and the nature of the questioning at the state's discretion, visitation rights from ex-felons at the state's discretion, and if you are arrested for civil unrest or whatever, continued social welfare support at the state's discretion.
Basically, the state wants to make it clear to those dependent upon social welfare, that the only behavior that they find acceptable, is obeisance to the state, no matter how arbitrary or unfair, in the belief that the threats and reality of taking away the bread and circuses of everyday life will keep the masses: dumb, uninformed, compliant, and controlled.