>You can easily say the same thing about someone who does work a high-tech job
No you F-ing can't, and if you even remotely think that, you have never experienced poverty. Life's a lot different when your bills are $X this month and working 60 hours only makes you $X-$1000. "Change your expenses" Oh yeah? Am I supposed to WILL cheaper apartments into existence? Am I supposed to magically reduce the cost of my groceries? Am I supposed to pray away the late fee on my cell phone plan because I literally had $10 in my bank account and couldn't pay it?
It is expensive to be poor, intentionally so. It is a huge source of profit for numerous companies to make poor people pay more for the same service and access.
I'm sick and tired of privileged jerks saying "Just be better with your money" as if you can magically stretch your $15 and hour job to cover $1500 a month in rent, or that you should have no problem scheduling things when you can't even know your work schedule the week before.
What part of "personal responsibility" changes that your rent goes up %5 every single damn year, and your pay check does not?
I grew up in poverty. I only escaped it through sheer luck that I am above average intelligence and my hyperfixation was computers and computing history and programming, and despite a literal full ride scholarship to a second rate state college, I still couldn't afford it without my jackass Rich Uncle, who is exactly the type to complain about "personal responsibility", writing a $10K check. Now I pay $20k or more in taxes every year, for the rest of my life, which clearly offsets the 16 years times $10k a year "tuition" it costs to put someone through public school.
But notably, that doesn't undo the actual, physiological changes in my brain that come from growing up in poverty. These changes cause you to make less rational and less value-positive decisions. But no, definitely my fault that my brain broke when my mom spent most nights screaming and crying and trying to not starve to death.
Meanwhile she has literally won awards in the state for being one of the best teachers. For 30 years. She still cries about the suffering we experienced. But no, better that poor people get screwed over if they don't make perfect decisions, that they are empirically wired to not be able to do as easily as someone who grew up in a not financially stressed household.