I watched this program once that proved that it was almost impossible to work on minimum wage and be able to scrape up enough for an average security deposit on an apartment. Meaning that you would have to have public assistance, e.g. welfare, or you gotta live in the 'jects, as alot of people around here do. Add a car to the equation and its impossible to do. In my state the minimum wage was recently raised to 6.85 for that reason.
EDIT: I have worked a few jobs recently, when i worked as a busser/server at a local italian joint, i made 4/hr plus tips. Since at that time i was still with moms it was good money, but i ended up quitting because its a shitty ass job. Now i detail cars freelance, and i make somewhere between 700-800 a week usually, 1000 on a good week, my best week was 2500 when a local car show hired me to clean all of them, but thats exceedingly rare, so you factor about 700 a week thats a good 3000 a month, so like 36000 a year, with no boss, all i have to pay is advertising costs and my apartment which is pretty damn cheap. Being in the middle of the worst housing slump in the united states (northeast ohio) can be good for something...