Incorrect.

We believe being poor sucks, which is why we believe handouts and policies that dampen the desire and the opportunity to work to improve oneself and one's situation are demeaning, wrong, and fundamentally inhibit every American's right to pursue happiness and consequently, the American dream.

We also believe that being poor is a good motivator. Having worked in a dishroom for minimum wage for more than a year, I guarantee you that it motivated me to want to finish college and pursue a career that didn't involve me living in poverty. When you experience poverty for yourself, given the opportunity you'll become more creative, more inventive, and will generally be more motivated to change your situation. When you climb your way out of poverty on your own, you learn the value of savings, the value of each dollar you earn, and you make better choices with those dollars because they hold your own personal blood, sweat, and tears.

I also think there's a big difference between living in poverty and living on welfare. You can be poor and be motivated to better your situation and learn to enjoy the self-respect and dignity that comes from that or you can live off a handout and be generally speaking, miserable. I don't think those in either situation "have it easy." But I think the first group lives in hope while the second group lives their lives trapped within the poverty of their own mind and spirit--and that's a far more difficult situation to escape/overcome.

In the 1950's I grew up poor in an inner-city housing project. By the time I was a teenager, I was determined I was going to do everything I my power to not spend the rest of my life in dependency. I went to a trade school, applied myself well enough to go on to college, matured into conservatism.
Work, work, work... There is no free lunch, none that taste good, or should.
I know lots of people who stayed in dependency. My sister for instance, who, ironically, was the smartest of us four children.
She hardly had to crack a book, she just absorbed knowledge, such a waste.

It's a safety net, it's not supposed to be a safety hammock
Far too many people will simply satisfy themselves with adequacy.
God forbid we make it even more comfortable for the hoard of (30 million? 40 million?) sloths.

Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.
It should be uncomfortable, I'll go as far to say it should be painful.
I lived it, I know, you need a reason to Move On. (pun intended)

Well, since liberals appear to define the Clintons as "poor," I think that may be accurate.