So in our internet age of free wireless access points, cheap laptops and mobility, cell phones are still expensive. As anyone who has a phone your looking at the very minimum 20$ a month just to keep one up and running, and your social life popping. As if you don't have a phone number you can be reached on you will fall out of the radar of a lot of people, and don't even think about trying to get anything but the shittiest of jobs. Thus the whole cycle of poverty, but in our information age there are other solutions.