"You can hand out a quality job skill education to every citizen but that doesn't do much to solve the problem if there aren't enough jobs paying a living wage

"You can hand out a quality job skill education to every citizen but that doesn't do much to solve the problem if there aren't enough jobs paying a living wage that need to be filled." You are both missing the point. Most people in the doldrums are 'socially broken'. They have extremely poor attitudes, anti-social behaviour, addictions, anger etc. etc.. Many of them are untrainable. There are a ton of crappy, service sector jobs available. Yes - they are crap - and maybe they should pay more - but they provide easily enough to live on. You can get a reasonable, safe, clean and small place in Montreal for $450 a month. $12/hour is ballpark $24K a year, so $2K a month before taxes, say $1600 after taxes. It's possible to live a 'basic life' on near minimum wage. There is absolutely no reason why a sane person of sound mind can't simply do this. Again - people at the bottom are 'low grade material' usually. You know when you interview people and some are just 'much better than others' - well - some people are way down the Darwin chain. Obviously - hopelessness, lack of opportunity etc compounds and puts people into the identity of failure. 'Jobs' isn't quite the problem, and neither is 'lack of money'. It's 'broken spirits' and dysfunctional people. I would like to see minimum wage raised, however.