The only sane answer is &quot;Don&#x27;t to put any roadblocks between them and catching up.&quot; or in a more positive spin, &quot;Make available, without constraint, any resources they would need to catch up.&quot;<p>And it really does come down to morality, social and personal.<p>I am certainly in the &quot;teach a person to fish&quot; category of fixing societal ills. But I get it when previous choices have left someone &quot;stuck&quot; and unable to succeed.<p>Back in the early 2000&#x27;s before we had all sorts of data[1] to back it up, I could see that single parents were in a world of hurt. Married couples had a much better shot at getting by. But you couldn&#x27;t really fix that by demanding people find some soul mate&#x2F;life partner to marry in order to get out of poverty. I suggested to my representatives and others we really could use an institution that had the same benefits of marriage but was more contractual than spiritual. If two single parents, regardless of sex, could enter into a contract to work together to raise their children, it would encourage them to do so. And by institution I mean the whole thing, rights of survivorship, community property, shared health care information, joint filing status with respect to taxation.<p>In my way of thinking that is removing a structural roadblock in the way of those people stuck in poverty by their past choices.<p>At the same time, I have also met people who don&#x27;t put any investment into getting out of their circumstances. I realized there can be a learned helplessness element here, but for folks who just don&#x27;t want to, I don&#x27;t feel any guilt or remorse for them as they slide down the slope.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;wonk&#x2F;wp&#x2F;2014&#x2F;04&#x2F;10&#x2F;the-relationship-between-single-mothers-and-poverty-is-not-as-simple-as-it-seems&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;wonk&#x2F;wp&#x2F;2014&#x2F;04&#x2F;10&#x2F;the-r...</a>