Currently..

the President's budget wish list includes a 17 billion dollar cut in social services spending and a proposal to turn the food stamps program into a direct transfer of foodstuffs scheme. Canned beans and oatmeal are apparently going to be handed out to the poor in the fashion by which we distribute food to refugees in Failed States...I find that ironic to say the least.
But then, we have this innovative rhetorical approach to poverty in this country and we've had it for some two hundred years now, we think we can "shame it away" with just the right assortment of  taunts & insults.
I don't know if being poor in any country is a soft touch, I have little enough direct experience by which to testify I can tell you it's pure misery to be poor in THIS country. Between the meager living and the cold contempt for the very state of poverty itself emanating from the OverClass its a wonder more poor people take to canoes and try their luck in the Azores.
And as far as conservative theology is concerned you don't arrive at a bad idea like this without having embraced a delusional notion of poverty as a condition of life that is literally independent of economic conditions...and if you can believe that you can believe lining them up like medieval thralls for cans of  lentils & boxes of Hungry Jack's is a good idea as well.