They gather at dawn at day-labor centers or designated parking lots where contractors hire workers. Some stop on their way to pick up a cheap breakfast taco at a convenience store, buying their meal from an employee earning minimum wage. At the store, they wait in line with members of a crew purchasing gas for the mowers and trimmers they will use to cut the grass of other people's lawns.
They are the working poor—people who may work more hours a week than the average salaried employee, but they do it at a cobbled-together assortment of part-time jobs without benefits. Some find themselves trapped in the situation because they lack the education or technical skills to find a better job. Others lost salaried positions due to economic recession and are working part-time or temporary jobs to try to make ends meet.
Living in poverty
Ron Sider, founder of Evangelicals for Social Action, sees that situation—coupled with the United States' deficit and a growing gap between the rich and poor—as a justice crisis.
"Minimum wage doesn't get a person even close to the poverty level. People ought to be able to work their way out of poverty," Sider, professor at Palmer Theological Seminary in Wynnewood, Pa., said in an interview.
But more Americans live in poverty today than at any time in more than 50 years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Bureau of Economic Research.
"The richest nation in human history now has the highest poverty level of any Western industrialized nation," Sider writes in his new book, Fixing the Moral Deficit: A Balanced Way to Balance the Budget.
Living in poverty
Ron Sider, founder of Evangelicals for Social Action, sees that situation—coupled with the United States' deficit and a growing gap between the rich and poor—as a justice crisis.
"Minimum wage doesn't get a person even close to the poverty level. People ought to be able to work their way out of poverty," Sider, professor at Palmer Theological Seminary in Wynnewood, Pa., said in an interview.
But more Americans live in poverty today than at any time in more than 50 years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Bureau of Economic Research.
"The richest nation in human history now has the highest poverty level of any Western industrialized nation," Sider writes in his new book, Fixing the Moral Deficit: A Balanced Way to Balance the Budget.
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