When I read

That’s the funny thing about being poor. Everyone has an opinion on it, and everyone feels entitled to share.

I thought, "Yes, and here you are now doing the same thing." I don't think I found the narrator to be very sympathetic. I am not trying to say in any way that she brought her problems upon herself or deserved them; not at all. I am saying that this is an article written by someone who temporarily experienced poverty that was completely out-of-the-norm with her day-to-day life and then, after a few years, was able to leave her temporary financial abode of "poverty" and then wrote about it (which is a reasonable thing for her to do).

I would be more sympathetic if this was a story about people who cannot so easily escape poverty and how they deserve respect/lack of judgment/sympathy, highlighted and/or expanded by the author's own experiences, as opposed to what it is currently.

I did feel she was complaining a bit much, as I also felt when she complained about the guy who gave her the Jesus card. On the other hand, a close friend very recently told me, essentially, that I am not a very sympathetic person, and my reaction was pretty much "Yeah, that's fair," so that's coming in through here too of course.