Cheap phones like a year old Moto G are under $100. There's no reason that shouldn't last two years. They do everything necessary. If you're near poverty, you don't get to use "normal" amounts of data, streaming shows and Spotify and YouTube. You need enough data to get by, and 5GB will easily load every website you must access in a month, never mind that the plan includes all the talk/text you need.
I really do pay $15 a month for my phone plan. I've never hit my 5GB data cap.
I do have $30 home internet. So even if we assume two adults and home broadband, we're talking $70 including hardware, not $200, but there's nothing I do on my home WiFi that I absolutely need and couldn't do from my phone while staying under the data cap. But I'm not financially struggling, and it's an expense I'm happy to pay. It's not something I need.
I also use cheap Mint Mobile plan with a 5 gig plan. Most months I don't hit the cap. But the months that I do all have two things in common: either traveling, often with the implicit assumption that I can use my phone for work, or tethering to use for work when there's a power or internet outage. Those primary causes aside, the current online universe does an awful lot of video and I've wasted an awful lot of data watching tutorial videos and how-to type stuff.
That said, the point is that if you can't watch a tutorial because it'd run over your data cap, it's problematic. So is having too trash of a phone - it's the kind of thing employers will see as a negative signal at a certain point.
Which is to say, sure, maybe you can spend under $200/mo on phones and Internet for one or two people, but realistically you're not spending under $100 without major and problematic sacrifices. And whether it's a $100 or $200, compared to housing, food, other stuff, it's not a wild expense.
I really do pay $15 a month for my phone plan. I've never hit my 5GB data cap.
I do have $30 home internet. So even if we assume two adults and home broadband, we're talking $70 including hardware, not $200, but there's nothing I do on my home WiFi that I absolutely need and couldn't do from my phone while staying under the data cap. But I'm not financially struggling, and it's an expense I'm happy to pay. It's not something I need.