Just a story of what things look like for me.
I'm 30 years old. I didn't do well in high school due to a combination of circumstances including multiple learning disabilities and a bad home life which left me both very isolated from my peers and under constant duress.
I did manage to get into a college which was supposed to help me with my learning issues. But all the “help” amounted to was telling me to do my homework. It meant nothing. Due to the stress of trying to handle it without proper assistance, and admittedly also smoking weed about it, I had a mental breakdown and had to leave.
I spent the next 12 years working highly physical jobs. I struggle that whole time with pain in my joints. That pain had actually begun in early adolescence, but it took until last year for me to be believed by a doctor. Over those 12 years, the pain reached a level which is absolutely incapacitating, peaking when I began an arthritis flare early last year that just ended this year when I finally got on proper medication.
The medication makes it manageable, but I am still physically disabled, in addition to my learning disabilities.
My work history is shit, because I've been jumping from job to job, trying new things when the old jobs become impossible to do. I have never held a job for longer than 2 years at one time, and I have multiple gaps due to inability to function at a basic level.
I have acquired no skills which would help me at a desk job, I have no degree (and no way to obtain one), and I am currently barely hanging on at yet another job that is too physical for me to do on even a decent part-time basis. I average 7 hours of work per week.
I have put out somewhere in the realm of 20 applications in the last month and have not heard back on a single one. Businesses effectively consider me to be unhireable because there are always better-qualified people applying for them, even at entry level. I cannot get a suitable job due to my poor resume, my lack of experience, and my lack of education, I cannot get experience due to the inability to get a suitable job, and I cannot get an education because I have no money.
I cannot sue my past doctors who refused to treat me, because the statute of limitations has passed.
I have been getting by due to my parents' generosity, and life is better than it would be for others with these issues, but I have never truly tasted independence, and at this rate, it's doubtful I ever will. It seems I am, effectively, permanently exiled from the job market. I am living on the biting edge of poverty. If I were to go on disability, it would be even worse.
The future is bleak, with no prospects of independence, and the near-certainty that my parents' ability to support me will run out before I lose the need for it. (My parents are financially stable, and I will not bleed them dry. They will tell me when their budget can no longer include this.)
There are probably millions like me, excluded from the system, but our voices are quiet because we usually don't have any resources. I am comparatively lucky. Hopefully this was an enlightening read for some.