So countries without poverty programs/a social safety net...
...they don't have 'permanent underclasses'?
Where is that, exactly?
The point is, what you refer to as social safety nets do far less to "help" your preferred groups of "underprivileged", and far more to create the permanent underclass you rail about. Government give-away programs of the type you champion actually create a de facto occupation of being an "underclass" by paying people to stay that way.
In fact, they are clearly designed to keep the poor in the program:
Our Liberal friends have made certain that their ‘client base’ cannot escape! There is no way out of the ‘Poverty Trap’-
those who try to work to find their way out of the trap will find that, as income rises, the loss of their welfare benefits is the same as a huge tax on their earnings!
a. Take the example of someone receiving $12,000 in welfare benefits. She takes a new job earning $16,000 a year. But if she loses 50 cents in benefits for every dollar she now earns, that is the equivalent of a 50% tax! Plus, the payroll tax is another 7.65%, and federal tax is another 10% on the margin, plus state tax of 5%.... total: 72.65% tax. Where is the incentive to work? Comes to a salary of $84.15/ week. Now subtract transportation, lunches, etc., etc.
From chapter five of Peter Ferrara’s “America’s Ticking Bankruptcy Bomb.”
b. “…but the central point is obvious.
Marginal tax rates for inner-city inhabitants are prohibitively high. Over the entire wage range from zero to $1,600 per month (equivalent to a gross paycheck of $1,463 per month), the family's monthly spendable income rises by $69. This corresponds to
an average tax "wedge" of 95.7 percent. More shocking, between zero and $1,200 per month in gross wages, the family loses $46 in monthly spendable income -- an average tax in excess of 100 percent. This loss in net spendable income is concentrated between gross wages of $700 and $1,200 per month. As monthly wages paid rise by $500 in this span, the family loses its entitlement to $385 in AFDC benefits and $9 in food stamps. In addition the housing subsidy is reduced by $23 and the value of medical benefits declines an estimated $130. At the same time the family's tax liabilities increase by a total of $161 -- $8 in state income and disability insurance taxes, $68 in payroll taxes, and $85 in federal income tax. (Details of these calculations are given in the appendix.)”
The Tightening Grip of the Poverty Trap