Yours is the most reasonable reply...
Husband and I are married 32 years. We have (almost) raised five children (youngest two in college). I work “dead end” retail (w/a few years as a real estate agent—got licensed via community college courses) for about the last 30 some years. Why? Because I could work evenings & weekends and my husband could watch the kids.
Much has been said about her “advancing” up the food chain where she works and fast food management was given as an example. I’ve never worked fast food, but I’ve been a store “assistant” manager (keyholder) where you make a couple dollars more an hour than the clerks but, w/o a 4 year degree in business, marketing etc. you NEVER become even a store manager.
All that said, I have worked w/enough women like Christine to know her story. Not making excuses, but the working world is different now. Most are part timers, hours are not “set” so the weaving in of a second job is almost impossible. And she has kids. So if they are to have any kind of after school activity that figures into the equation as well.
Some of my co-workers ha e qualified for SNAP, CHIP and Food Stamps. They weren’t proud of it, but trying to keep an old car on the road (so they can get to work) coupled with unexpected illness, injury, and a stretched budget snaps. What do you do without?
The tone of her article is whiny, but that doesn’t make her points any less valid.
IBFSFBTASOWTTPTNMT*
(In before financially solvent Freepers boast they are so overwhelming wealthy that they pay their neighbors mortgages too!)
I have been on both sides of the issue, although I have never applied for food stamps. I have had quarter million dollar years where I paid more in taxes than I made in five not so good years combined. Income level goes up, and it can come down just as fast or faster. Booms go bust, and the contacts you had who retired are replaced by those who give no credit for adapting to do a job from drafting on velum through using eight different successive operating systems on computers, as well as all the other changes which occur in 30+ years in a dynamic industry. Education is nice, but no guarantee, especially in markets driven by global commodity prices. Not even being a pioneer in the field is any guarantee of employment as job requirements are reduced to data gatherers and bottle washers.
Anyone in a job without tenure of some sort is prone to being replaced by someone who will work cheaper, who doesn't know enough to ask questions.
The second job killer (as you mentioned) is scheduling. Without a predictable schedule on one job, the other cannot be scheduled, so no second job. With Obamacare, hours are being cut, so incomes suffer.
It is my firm belief that this was part of the entire pattern of making more people dependent on Government largess, whether they wanted to be or not. If you have kids to feed you do what you must. There is no public transportation in an incredibly large part of the country, and vehicles grow more complicated and expensive every year.
The net result is to herd people into cities and distinct corridors which provide transportation: which is the essence of Agenda 21.
Whether grand conspiracy or not, all the pieces fit hand in glove to make this come about, and it will continue unless things get turned around.
I had a few years of not worrying about money (except at tax time), sadly, that period has ended. It can happen to anyone.