I refer to it as being "upper poor". For a retiree such as myself with no debts, I joke about the upper poor life style. It's really quite doable. But for a family? It's difficult.
These are the ones we should be praising. They're the ones who shouldn't be getting minimum wage, but because there are unending new waves of non-citizen labor, they are lucky to make more than $10 an hour.
We don't turn things around in the US until the working poor are better off than the crowd that lives off government freebees.
Wow. My dearly departed parents, my Dad a WWII vet, called themselves the “working poor.” Now my highly educated and well employed husband and me, also highly educated and working “below my level” with four kids, two of whom graduated college and working in their fields, one in college and one about to attend college, are struggling. Medical, college debt, taxes, etc. My give a damn button is stuck. I don’t give a damn about 3rd world countries or the welfare poor in this country. I’m tired of paying for everyone else.
And I was raised in a family that wouldn’t take anything from the government. How our values have shifted.
Well said.