I dare say that with 12% of the population under the poverty line, it surely is representative of what life it is like for a fair portion of the Americans. Now

I dare say that with 12% of the population under the poverty line, it surely is representative of what life it is like for a fair portion of the Americans. Now, once you factor in that the "poverty line" for a 2 people household is defined as 16'000 dollars a year, it is not a stretch to estimate that the population in poverty, or near poverty is around 20-25% of the population. That makes this social experiment a lot more interesting.