Poverty actually has a defined number attached to it. It's not really a perceptual thing.
In the United States, where the Census Bureau sets the number, it's $10,210 for a single person, plus around $3,500 for each additional person living in the household. (It's higher in Alaska and Hawaii.) In Minnesota, $36,000 a year would only be poverty if the household had nine people living in it.
If there are nine people living in a house, unless something has gone horribly, horribly awry with fertility drugs, someone can pick up a paper route or something and bring some extra dough in.
Where? It varies wildly by location. I paid $182/month for my first apartment in a college town, and it was really nice. You couldn't even find a cardboard box that was on fire at the time for that in the Los Angeles suburbs.
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell, notoriously in certain places. The starting salary for teachers in my current city is more almost $10,000 a year above the average income in the area, and the salary can more than double over the course of a teacher's career.
Teachers have a tough time in some places, but the perception that they have a tough time nationally isn't always accurate. It's an important job, it's a difficult job, but it's not a job that requires a vow of poverty if you're willing to move to somewhere else in the country.
