Absolutely. Being poor is very expensive. I make a good salary and have my car paid off, a ~5 year old SUV. Monday I heard a grinding noise and took it in, new

Absolutely. Being poor is very expensive. I make a good salary and have my car paid off, a ~5 year old SUV. Monday I heard a grinding noise and took it in, new radiator belt fan assembly required, $800. That would cripple someone on minimum wage even without the car payment. On top of that I had to drop ~$300 on some new part for my home AC and $1800 on getting trees cut before hurricane season. 2 weeks before I spent $600 after another tree collapsed into the neighbors yard. Home ownership is another dream they try and sell poor people and they don't tell them how incredibly expensive it is. In the US, if you are poor it is very hard to become not poor, the few success stories are by and large the exception to the rule. Most people don't have bootstraps made out of luck and fairy dust. In America the greatest predictor of where you end up is where you start.