there is a cliff, such that a the 2 adults, 2 children on 22,500 gross income may have access to $48,700 after refundable tax credits, SNAP, housing, etc [linked in other comment].
However if that same household earns just $5,600 more annually nearly all of those transfers cease to be available and the total income accessible becomes $36,400. It really is a case where making more is too expensive. That's less than 110 extra pre-tax dollar per week across both adult earners, and so just about 1.35 an hour raise for each adult, or 2.70 for either one of them is a real loss of over 12,000 dollars. It takes nearly $5 an hour raise for BOTH adults at the 22,500 to become even minimally better than the loss of those transfers.
There is a significant number of households in the second quartile (at or slightly above 36.4K) than in the bottom quartile, and yet those are living on less than what has been defined as the 'survivable wage' by the 48.7K number
So yes, the "True Rate of Barely Getting By" is even higher than the number of households earning 26K would reveal.
And much of that assistance is not a guarantee: they'll have to jump through a number of hoops to get it, and making a single mistake on a single form, or having one non-liquid asset that's too valuable on paper, may mean they get disqualified. At best that means they need to start the process again; at worst it's all over and they cannot be considered, at least for a certain time period.
It is, simultaneously, important to know about that cliff, because it's real and it causes untold hardship, and really, really dangerous to view poverty as a road to "easy money" in the way your first sentence (likely inadvertently) implies.
I didn't mean to paper over the time and organizational cost of accessing those transfers, there is a real burden and the system is inherently opaque to the people who need it the most.
My first sentence was a pure statement of 'best case' scenario if everything goes perfectly correct and completely misses the time lag for most of those benefits. Specifically any tax rebates are significantly 'after the fact' as in the middle of next year, and that is 'funds not in hand' with various for fee services offering early or accelerated access to these tax refnds, and also other short term financing 'payday loans' and 'buy now pay later' at significant costs which are unfairly borne by the group of people least able to bear those costs.
The cliff is even steeper for the condition where the low income household's housing costs are capped and subsidised until the houshold crosses a threshold and then must absorb moving, first and last month's rents plus security deposit at local market rate. It takes almost nothing in terms of a minor hourly raise to functionally destroy these households monthly available cash reserves, and this discussion doesn't even touch on what happens if anything which is unavoidably expensive arises; like an automobile breakdown or serious non-covered medical event.
The reality of the US in real today terms is that for the 2 adults, 2 children model household anything below about 100k is still precipitously risky in many ways. What might have looked 'doable' with a family on 50k even five years ago is nothing like the current conditions for most of the nation.
Additionally, people aren't stupid. That guy with a 22.5 HHI is actually working for cash on a concrete crew all summer, dealing weed, running scrap or some other source of under the table income that makes people above a certain tax bracket clutch their pearls. You often lose the ability to be competitive at such gigs when you take the time commitment of a "real job" even if only part time so there's that cliff too.
"Additionally, people aren't stupid." < We'll just have to agree to disagree on this point. I tend to agree with George Carlin on this particular point: “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
Your example being, at least in my book, a counter example of your premise.
Working all summer on a concrete crew for cash seems like a good idea until an on-the job injury without workman's comp changes the way he walks for the rest of his life. Dealing weed doesn't have the profitability these days with legal dispensaries in many states and mandatory sentencing in the others. Running scrap is somewhat 'grand larceny adjacent', and again prone to an uninsured skill-saw event. Remember to wear eye protection when using a power tool.
So, returning to the two adults, two children exemplar household, it seems reasonable to expect that in general these people exhibit a lower incidence of these behaviours. If one or both of those children are still young enough to require round the clock supervision there is a significant limit on the couple's available working hours every week. That would make a similar 'hard to commit' to a higher paying full time job, for at least one parent.
I mean, the two kids really cut into the time flexibility necessary to participate in the grey-to-outright criminal economy, so I posit that people who report as earning the bottom quartile who also undergo the stringent documentation requirements necessary to receive benefits are more likely to be actually living on what they legally declare, than are somehow working, stealing benefits AND making substantially more through grift or crime.
I admit this may be my own biased observation, but the single 'smaht guy' with 22.5k household income and the criminal gig enterprise seems very unlikely to be filing a tax return or receiving any other support. So that case is interesting, but not very applicable in this equation: he's living on whatever he has this week or this month with very little long term benefit from earnings he cannot use to build a credit score, secure stable housing or invest in a future.
However if that same household earns just $5,600 more annually nearly all of those transfers cease to be available and the total income accessible becomes $36,400. It really is a case where making more is too expensive. That's less than 110 extra pre-tax dollar per week across both adult earners, and so just about 1.35 an hour raise for each adult, or 2.70 for either one of them is a real loss of over 12,000 dollars. It takes nearly $5 an hour raise for BOTH adults at the 22,500 to become even minimally better than the loss of those transfers.
There is a significant number of households in the second quartile (at or slightly above 36.4K) than in the bottom quartile, and yet those are living on less than what has been defined as the 'survivable wage' by the 48.7K number
So yes, the "True Rate of Barely Getting By" is even higher than the number of households earning 26K would reveal.