Vernon could not get a job paying above minimum wage in Quincy. Partly because we had no car, partly because the boss of his student teaching badmouthed him, partly because he did not know anyone in town. When I try to have an intelligent discussion about it, otherwise reasonable people will insist that if someone is willing to work, no matter where they are, there is a job that pays better than minimum wage, especially if they have a college degree. It just wasn't there for Vernon, and the scholarships were there for me, so we stayed.
These otherwise reasonable people will invent a safety net of friends and family for any hypothetical poor person. They seem to believe that everyone has a family that they can rely on, that anyone who says they don't is lying or just too proud and needs to learn to eat crow and having public aid available lets people get by without learning to get along.