First off, you need transportation to work. In most of America, this means, you need a car, gas, insurance, and maintenance. Secondly, you need uniforms. The

First off, you need transportation to work. In most of America, this means, you need a car, gas, insurance, and maintenance. Secondly, you need uniforms. These are often paid for out of your check and come from companies that have pretty comfortable markup. Then you have the "expensive to be poor items" Such as getting your paycheck on what amounts to a Visa gift card, because cheap employers are transitioning to payment services that offload the cost of associated with payroll onto the employees. These cards have relatively high maintenance fees, and charge for things like actually getting your money. That's not even getting into shit like, "split shifts" where you have to work a few hours, take a multi-hour break, then work a few more hours. This means that you have to stay at work for 8 hours, but only get paid for maybe 4-6 of them. While you could leave, it would cost you money to do so. I've gone through this with younger siblings over the years. One in particular was a delivery driver, and factoring in cost of their car, the only reason they thought they were making money was because they were hiding the depreciation on their car through very long car loans and were not paying for the insurance coverage they should have been. Most low wage positions are only possible because they are subsidized by someone else, maybe it is a parent who lets them live rent free, or they subsist on credit card debt and payday loans to handle emergencies.