In Lower Manhattan on Monday afternoon, protesters were drawn by a vast array of concerns: stark income inequality in the city, their family’s suffering from salary cuts, the embarrassment of resorting to food stamps despite working 40 hours a week.

Kay Merryweather, 34, an artist on the Lower East Side, volunteers at Trinity Church, giving out food. She said that during the financial crisis, when banks were receiving bailouts and financial executives were receiving multimillion-dollar bonuses, the church often ran out before the long lines of working poor were fed. “The bankers were getting all of these millions,” Ms. Merryweather said. “And we didn’t have enough food.”

But not far away, Benny Zable, 66, a longtime activist, was protesting while wearing a gas mask and a suit that read “Work Consume Be Silent Die.” He said his outrage came from the heedlessness of economic growth. “It’s the greed factor,” Mr. Zable said.

In Chicago, where 175 protesters were arrested over the weekend for curfew violations, a crowd outside the Federal Reserve Bank marched to the beat of improvised drums. “Education is a part of it; housing is a part of it; jobs are a part of it,” said Maryem Alyhabib, 34, who left her three children with her mother to protest for an hour and a half on Monday for the first time.

Without the symbolic power of a Wall Street, many local activists have improvised by occupying parks, street corners, always someplace with a link to the power structure they denounce. The many arrests that have taken place across the country have linked protesters in spirit.

“Just because you’re not on Wall Street doesn’t mean you’re not affected by what they do and the decisions that they make,” said Daniel Saltzman, 23, who was cited on a charge of criminal trespass over the weekend at Occupy Tucson. “Unfortunately, we don’t have the money to fly to New York, but we still can make a difference in our community.”