State ID is like stone soup, if you got the ID you need to get one, you don't need one.
Birth certificate isn't mission impossible to replace, but it's not photo ID, so doesn't mean crap unless you already have photo ID and you just using that as a second ID. You need six points worth of ID to get a driver's license here. Birth certificate is one point.
People think it's easy till they have to go through the process. Two individuals who said the same thing to me for years, no biggie, no problem... changed their tunes once they had a try for themselves.
One of them was in his 20s when he tried to get a state ID and found out he had insufficient ID. Guy calls me up and said remember when you told me that, were you were right. As if I didn't know I was right when I said it. Why would I say it if it wasn't right? I love when people do that, "Remember when you said whatever, you were right!" Um, kinda.
Another is a family friend who had who had told me the same thing for years, it can't be that difficult, she's a social worker, so she should know, etc. But then one of her daughters tried to get a driver's license in her 20s and she too lacked sufficient ID.
My advice to everybody is get what you driver's license and whatever other ID can before you turn 18 but because at least you can use your parents ID to help you get your driver's license and what not when you're a minor, otherwise, it's going to be next to mission impossible.
I have heard that other states might be easier than New York, but I wouldn't bank on it.
So when somebody who's too poor to get their own car is having trouble getting a driver's license and their parents never had one because they're too poor to own a car, they ain't lying.