[paulhauggis]

I was unemployed and this poor for almost 2 years. Craigslist has rooms for rent in almost every major city in the US, which is very affordable. Public libraries can also provide the computers and the free high-speed Internet access (which I considered my 'office' during this time because I didn't have cable or Internet at home).

While this won't work if you have absolutely no money and no job, it's certainly an option for many people that want to get to a better area..but can't afford an apartment.

When you are poor, you need to get creative if you want to survive.

[muhfuhkuh]

>I was unemployed and this poor for almost 2 years

How about born this poor? How about 2 generations of this poor? How about "there are no bootstraps" poor? That is 24% of Alabama and 20% of West Virginia (I always preemptively point those two out to be fair to both major American races, so that no "it's all the Black folks fault they're poor" shenanigans come out here as they do in other discussions about poverty, as West Virginia is nearly 95% white).

>While this won't work if you have absolutely no money and no job

In other words, the very definition of poverty.

So, be born with nothing, with a single mother that works 3 jobs, never sees you for more than 2 of your waking hours as you get tossed from one strange neighbor in the trailer park/projects to another, you can't concentrate on studies because teachers don't care that you're hungry at home (not at school, I know they have free lunch programs) because they get paid nothing, you share textbooks in class and can't take them home, you hear gunshots or people fighting next door or carousing all night so you can't sleep, and now you're supposed to graduate, get into college, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and get that juicy Android dev ops manager job in Silicon Valley? Or, as JoeAltmaier says, walk to a better life with rosy opportunities?

Is that how they're supposed to do it?