I have gone from marginally attached to the workforce to the working poor. I can tell you without hesitation there is no situation worse than being poor and still having to work. I’m getting off of disability, I was forced to apply for federal disability as a condition of getting Medicaid and I had so many disabilities (visual impairment, glaucoma, bipolar 1) that I got accepted the first time. Now I’m getting off disability because I make too much money but have rarely been in poorer mental health. I was manic this spring, but it was a “dry” mania; there was no elevated mood, only irritability, and borderline psychosis.

The people I’m insanely jealous of are the people with disabilities/mental illnesses who don’t have to work. Being working poor, you neither get time nor money. If you are sedentary poor at least you get time. The worst feeling of all is not being in control of either your mind or your life. This is something you can’t know unless you have actually experienced it.

The other issue with being working poor is that high-status people you were once close to still ghost you because of your low status, and yet you are working, just not a job that is high-status enough to warrant them responding to you.