They are too focused on themselves to care

From Who Wants Good Advice? by Robin Hanson.  He starts by quoting Bryan Caplan

1. Finish high school. 2. Get a full-time job once you finish school. 3. Get married before you have children. ….While hardly anyone explicitly uses [this] success sequence to argue that we underrate the blameworthiness of the poor for their own troubles, critics still hear this argument loud and clear – and vociferously object. … Everyone – even the original researchers – insists that the success sequence sheds little or no light on who to blame for poverty. … talking about the success sequence so agitates the critics.

Hanson then goes on to observe:

Many people, including myself and Bryan, think it is a shame that so many seem worse off from making poor lifestyle choices, and so are inclined to recommend that good advice be spread more widely. However, what if most everyone who makes poor choices is actually well aware of the usual good advice when they make their poor choices? And what if they like having the option to later pretend that they were unaware, to gain sympathy and support for their resulting predicaments? Such people might then resent the wider spreading of the good advice, seeing it as an effort to take away their excuse, to blame them for their problems, and to reduce their sympathy and support.

[snip]

My conclusion: most people are well aware of a lot of advice, widely interpreted as good advice, that they don’t intend to follow. So they don’t actually want agents to give them good advise, as others would hear about that and then later give them less sympathy for not following the good advice that they have no intention of following. Yes, their children and other people in the world might benefit from such advice, but for this issue they are too focused on themselves to care.

 I agree that this is one aspect of the problem, but I think there are additional factors.

I would describe a supplemental explanation as one of Group-Individual Estimation Mismatch Failure.  Yes, individuals know that at the population level, the Success Sequence is compelling.  Whether articulated or not, I suspect the alternate process goes something like "Yes, that's true for the group, but there always exceptions.  My uncle dropped out of school, had a child but then found religion, straightened himself out, and is now a very successful contractor.  There are always exceptions to the averages.  I can beat those odds."

Or something like that.  The core issue is that it is always true that the group average is not the individual and there are always exceptions where the statistical rule is not borne out by the individual example.

Under this scenario, it is not so much about fear of being blamed and not having excuses.  It is simply about not understanding the statistical transition from group average to individual circumstance.  If the lessons derived from the group average are not understood to be meaningfully binding on the individual then awareness or unawareness of the Success Sequence is second fiddle to conviction or absence of conviction that what is true at the group average level remains statistically true at the individual level.

People aren't good at this sort of statistical interpretation.  When the weatherman predicts that there is a 70% chance that it will rain tomorrow and instead it is dry, you can't conclude that the weatherman was wrong.  You would have to look at a large population of similar such forecasts.  If 70% of the time that a weatherman forecasts rains, and then 70% of the time it does indeed then rain, then the weatherman is doing a good job forecasting.  A exception does not invalidate the population rule.  

Those who do not adhere to the Success Sequence, especially if they are poor and have no familial safety nets to mitigate ignoring the Sequence, are statistically far more prone to poverty than are those who do adhere to the Success Sequence.  

The rub remains the same.  They are in poverty largely owing to bad choices at critical junctures.  You can solve that problem or you can focus on allocating blame, rarely a productive approach.  Or both: sometimes you need to know the root cause before you can design an appropriate intervention.  

Good hearted people want to solve the problem and vociferously object to root cause analysis owing to the appearance of blaming the victim.  But the victim is almost always too blame, at least in part.  And still needs help.  Understanding why they make bad decisions is necessarily part of crafting a good solution for them.

Whether it looks like victim blaming or not.