Wow Brad, I very much agree with you, and have sincere sympathy for your friend.

My own mother is in this 'working poor' group, and in NJ she does better as she has a job that pays a slightly more livable wage (about 14/hr).

Six years ago when she was living in Florida, the only jobs available to her were day labor in cleaning up construction sites or doing landscaping at the golf courses at slighly over 5 dollars an hour, all with no health insurance of course. And all of her friends in neighbors were in the same sand trap. They had each other and not much more. She watched a very good friend of hers die of ovarian cancer caught late and basically untreatable, this poor woman never had a chance. So sad.

Shame on America for looking right over these people's heads to the middle class and never taking the time to solve this from the bottom up.

Jess


Dx'd AS (seronegative spondylarthopathy), Fibromyalgia 8/2007
Be happy for this moment... This moment is your life.