> There's also a ton of people who will delight in cherry-picking your story, as justification for not expanding the social safety net. "throwaway-0987 did it,

> There's also a ton of people who will delight in cherry-picking your story, as justification for not expanding the social safety net. "throwaway-0987 did it, and you can too! You just need to stop being so lazy" > we as a society should do more to help people who are caught in a poverty trap, especially because of poor decisions made when they were teenagers. Just because someone ran a 4-minute-mile doesn't mean it's reasonable to expect everyone to do so. Yes. Thank you. Lots of people start out poor and make it out. I did. Many friends did. But just as many did not. And it had _zero_ to do with "hard work". Almost all of it had to with the lack of a robust safety need and the need to (endlessly) prioritize survival.