The economy is poor in the United States. There are not a lot of jobs available and if they are available, there is now way to pay off the debt that you have. The debt is not very big, but you are starting to think what other options are available for you to get rid of the debt by working. Then it dawned on you to go overseas and see if you could work, lets say as an English teacher, and see if that could help. However, I would suggest not to pack your bag and head overseas just to get rid of this debt.
First off, the initial start up for going overseas is going to set you back a few thousand dollars. The passport by itself is over 100 dollars, according to the State Department. Second, the plane trip is going to be a lot of money, perhaps even 2000 dollars. So that is already 2000 dollars you are down in the train and you have not even set foot inside the country yet. Since you are looking for work, there will be a special permit you need to get from your destination country called a visa. For some places, like the People’s Republic of China, it will be almost 150 American dollars to purchase. Even if a work visa is free, you will need a lot of documentation to even start working overseas.
For example, the Japanese Government wants letters from the people hiring you, their financial records and they also want to have yours so you can sustain yourself. Even for a tourist visa for longer than 6 months, the Japanese want to know you can survive on your own without any handouts from welfare agencies. If they realize that you are in debt in your own country, there is no way another country will let you in and leech off of their welfare systems.
If you somehow manage to get past those barriers, you still have to get a place to live, still have to eat and function like a normal person. In some areas overseas, there will be some businesses that will look to rip off foreigners. When you do actually get paid, it will be in the local currency and will probably be hard to change the money from, lets say yen to dollars, without a bank and with the poor exchange rate the United States dollar is facing. Regardless of what country you pick, the cost for starting up and the difficulty for walking to the country with debt should be enough convincing for you that going overseas to wipe out debt will be hard.
