Down On One's Luck Meaning

(idiomatic) Unlucky or undergoing a period of bad luck, especially with respect to financial matters.

Example: 1915, Edward Stratemeyer, The Rover Boys in Business, ch. 28:
  If Crabtree is down on his luck he will most likely be willing to do anything for money.
1922, James Joyce, Ulysses, Episode 16:
  --He is down on his luck. He asked me to ask you to ask somebody named Boylan, a billsticker, to give him a job as a sandwichman.
1954 April 19, "The New Pictures," Time:
  Willie "tries to resist"—being, as the synopsis explains, "an attractive and intelligent girl who is simply down on her luck in the ruins of postwar Germany."
2008 July 1, Mel Antonen, "Rays, A's using same formula for success," USA Today (retrieved 3 Nov 2008):
  Pitcher Kyle Lohse, 29, who has had unsuccessful stints with the Minnesota Twins, Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies, seems to have found a home with the St. Louis Cardinals, a team that has a knack for turning around pitchers down on their luck.