The Washington Post, March 11, 2020: Living without a living wage
She had been riding the city bus almost every day for the past decade without paying much attention to the people around her. Sara Fearrington, 43, was usually isolated in the fog of her own problems, commuting between working double shifts at Waffle House and parenting at home, but now she walked with uncertainty into Durham’s bus station late one afternoon holding a clipboard and studying the crowd of tired faces.
She had been both employed and poor for her entire adulthood, but only in the past few months had she learned that officially made her a part of something: the low-wage workforce, the fastest growing segment of a splintering American economy that continues to expand at both extremes. There were a record 53 million low-wage workers last year, or about 44% of all active workers in the United States. More than half were women. Two-thirds were in their prime earning years. Forty percent were supporting children at home. They earned a median annual salary of $17,950.
