Assumptions are funny things. It might surprise you, but I actually HAVE been in more or less this situation. For me, it was in the years of the Great Recession. I graduated in 2010 and nobody would hire me, not even for service jobs like Starbucks/Walmart/etc. My parents had no ability to help me, and moving back in with them in the podunk town where I grew up would've been an economic dead end. At my lowest all I had was a $300 netbook computer to my name with maxed credit cards and an empty bank account; net worth -$60k due to student loans and credit card debt I acquired trying to make ends meet during my extended unemployment.

During this period I would've been on the streets except I was able to rotate among friends who generously let me sleep on the sofa for free. I stole about 80% of my food from a nearby university by pretending to be a student on the dining plan and spent my days applying for jobs from the library while starting to learn how to code Python. What little income I had during this period came from ghost-writing papers for rich college kids--$10 per page!--and one-off tutoring gigs I arranged through Craigslist. I tried making logos for people on 99designs using a pirated version of Adobe Illustrator but never won any design contests and gave up after a couple weeks of trying to focus on the writing and coding which seemed more promising.

When I managed to get my first paid tech job in 2014, I spent my first $20k on dental work I'd deferred to the point I needed a bunch of root canals and crowns. Only after my teeth were fixed did I understand how much of my mental bandwidth had been occupied by thinking: How are my teeth feeling today?

It was difficult being poor and I considered killing myself at times because I felt like such a failure. But I'm glad I saw these as problems for myself to solve because if I was waiting for a government program or social revolution to make things fair, I'd still be waiting. Or homeless. Or dead.

> Do you think anyone in this position can simply get out by choice? How many people do you think live in conditions like this?

No, I don't think ANYONE can. And I don't think it's simple. But I think many people can. I wouldn't advise waiting on somebody else to fix your problems if you're able to attempt self-rescue. I'm tired of people who have never been poor infantilizing those who are by pretending they have no agency in life.