There's no question that some people can surmount any hellish depths you can imagine, just like some people can smoke for 50 years and die of natural causes.  It gets less likely as you stack the deck against them, though.

elvismercury

mostly_harmless

The Homelessness Crisis

Undisciplined

Even practicing labor economists don't know what's going with entry-level employment trends. We're missing something important, though.

> after you've made enough bad decisions to be in danger of homelessness, have you got yourself into a corner s.t. you can't get on board in the modern economy

Then again, you hear about people getting out of prison after decades and starting back up. My dad worked with inner-city kids for a long time and one of the things that stuck with me from that is how some people overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles and others just can never get out of their own way.