The problem with the poor surviving entirely on debt is that it creates the illusion of stability, so if a stranger looks at their life from the outside they go

The problem with the poor surviving entirely on debt is that it creates the illusion of stability, so if a stranger looks at their life from the outside they go 'well, Bob's doing fine, he has a car and an apartment and can eat 2-3 times a day.' But then Bob gets sick just enough exactly once, and he gets fired because his employer isn't legally mandated to give him enough sick days or keep him around, and then he gets evicted because he has no savings, and then his car gets repossessed because he can't make the payments without a job, and then he can't get a new job because he needs a car to drive to work from the homeless shelter. And Bob still has 4-5 digits in credit card debt. Even worse still if he ends up sick enough to be hospitalized. Then he's probably got 5-7 digits worth of medical debts on top of being homeless and jobless. The problem isn't (IMO) the standard of living for america's poor, it's the precarity. At any moment even a small accident could ruin your life if you're poor in this country.