You continue to misunderstand me; permit me to explain more explicitly. When I identify financial insecurity as the leading cause for inequality and instability in this nation, I am in no way suggesting that we fall back upon or continue to implement failed policies. The factors you identify - education and jobs - are possible tools (not without their hang-ups) to achieve financial stability. Providing free education or employment services is not primarily about the education or the job, but about equipping people with those tools to secure their financial security. They are a means to an end: financial security. I reiterate, then, that the core problem is financial security... as evidenced even by your own arguments.

Regarding financial assistance programs specifically, however, I do have to disagree with your categorical rejection. I do not see such programs as being inherently ineffective (nor do I think you have presented any sound rationale as to why they would be), but rather poorly implemented. Education and employment assistance alone are frequently inadequate; 8.5% of recent college graduates are unemployed and 16.8% are underemployed (source), and even if we were to implement free education programs effective immediately former graduates remain burdened with an average debt of $29,400 (source) and the general average American debt is $53,850 of which 35.1% is in collections due to delinquency (source). Consequentially, even having received a free education and employment assistance most people would lose the majority of their income to pre-existing debts and remain financially insecure. Now, obviously, we need a longer term solution to the debt crisis of this nation. But in the interim we need a practical solution for supporting the significant portion of our population that is financially insecure, due sometimes to negligence but not infrequently due to overall economic conditions beyond individual control (e.g. esp. with regards to recent, unemployed graduates).

I contend that while giving people the tools to increase their prospects of financial security, it is important to retain a social safety net in the form of financial support programs. Rather than viewing and consequentially implementing such programs as long-term solutions (the failed approach to which you refer), these programs need to be treated as short-term safety nets and coupled with short-term education and employment training programs as well as longer-term state and national economic policies. Failing to provide access to tools such as education renders financial support programs ineffectual, yet just as surely as failing to provide those tools renders financial support programs ineffectual. Anger, loss of hope, and loss of pride are not necessary consequences of receiving assistance (particularly short term assistance); they are inherent consequences of sustained financial insecurity, however. We need an integrated approach, and unfortunately bipartisan politicization has prevented that from occurring.

P.S. Free education probably would be more expensive, given average annual tuition rates versus annual average dispensation from financial support programs.

P.S. The government does provide many services for which they employ people; notably, those positions are largely already filled and not infrequently by over-qualified persons. To suggest that the government just keep creating more jobs for which there is no actual need is a terrible solution to the problem of unemployment; that economic reality needs to be addressed head on, not side-stepped.