I think its more about having enough that you don’t spend all your cycles worrying about money; and more importantly that there’s a way to get on some kind of positive reinforcement treadmill whereby effort is rewarded financially.
That makes sense, but I was trying to figure out something else: if there's someone in this situation I want to help, what (at minimum) could I expect to have to do to get them out of that situation?
I think a better way of thinking about it is to be a lifeline instead of monetary amount.
Otherwise you very much risk wandering in to social services, and managing this can be unfair too.
If you really want to hold me to a number, then each country has a “poverty index” of some form, if you are able to assist with a roof over someones head and provide them with as much as needed to be over the poverty line, then you’re well on your way to dragging someone out of being poor. The important caveat is one time investments (like buying a cheap car, fixing a car or getting rid of a fine) are sometimes needed and this is what separates poor from everything else: being able to invest in common sense things that are simply impossible because the money simply does not exist to do it.
Being a lifeline to those in need is the best possible thing you can be in this case, as you’re taking the “it’s not cheap being poor” mantra away.
Does your employer have an “infinite commitment” to pay your salary?
Of course they do, but it isn’t framed as such.
We’re talking about social support networks here basically, the majority of actually poor people have nowhere to turn (or too much pride to turn anywhere).
There are some people who will be a bottomless pit of investment, and it is because of those that we think social support cannot work at all. The drug addicts, the gamblers.
but for each of those, immediately visible and obvious deadbeats there are 2 or more of people like my mother, who had no family to speak of and was raising a child alone. Or someone like the sysadmin in this thread, who has gainful employment in the first world, but can never get out of his debt hole.
