First of all, how many minimum wage positions do you think are out there? And if you do land one of those jobs, what do you do if you're laid off? How can you pay rent? Have a car that breaks down?
If you have a stable family group that can fill in the gaps when setbacks occur, sure, then you can keep going and see light at the end of the tunnel. But if you do not?
The simple fact is that a variety of bad public policy decisions have made this solution almost impossible for many of the poor.
First off, welfare policy and easy divorce have created innumerable female-headed households living on the dole, which provide no stable family for young men to rely on for support.
Second, the flood of Mexicans has eroded wages and locked many American poor out of the job market. They succeed mainly because they have a support network of either family or other working immigrants who can line up a job for them.
Third, our "free trade" policies have destroyed millions of high-paying, "low-skilled" manufacturing jobs that would provide wages high enough to support a stable family.
Can some people born into unstable homes living on the dole work themselves up from that? Sure. Just not too many.
We can't base public policy on expecting passion-filled young men to live heroically like monks until they rise out of poverty through luck and hard work, not starting a family until they are in their late twenties. It's never going to happen.
What we need to do is stop paying women to have kids out of wedlock, get control of immigration, and stop the "free trade" madness.
Nice analysis there, pierrem15.