Humm, I have a feeling part of the story is missing here, even though i can relate as i was myself a minimum wage worker in the hospitality industry in Britain for a while (back in 1999, my annual wage was something like 8500 pounds). Long odd hours, not so pleasant interfacing with customers, 7 people sharing a flat in London, so broke at the end of the month that walking from Mayfair to Canada Water was reality because no money for public transport....

Yet, as a foreigner, I (We, as a matter of fact, since all my friends and colleagues were either german, italian, spanish, chinese...) had no real social safety net to rely on. We couldn't go back to our family (500 miles away) with our tail between our legs in case we really fucked up.

Something isn't clear in this writer's account of the reason of her living in poverty, whether it is a story of mental illness, child abuse... things i witnessed years later when i bought a flat in Barking (poor white area of greater London) and this i feel would need to be clarified for me to be able to accept the conclusion that "poverty is largely accidental", especially coming from someone quite so articulate.