Naturally, picking up skills is pretty easy nowadays, though developing them to become something you can earn an income from may be a hard hurdle imo. After all, if you can pickup a skill, almost anyone can, and they may just be developing better than you are. So it's a contest at times really.
Salaries and wages this days aren't sufficient any longer to handle daily bills, most salary earners still live below their salaries which keeps them in perpetual debt.
But then again, wouldn't that be partly their fault? I mean they're trying to live above a way their salaries can't handle. Though they aren't completely to blame, proper finance management should get you through times imo. That is unless said times are completely demolishing whatever plan you have aka big a f debts, disasters, etc.