Free The Working Poor by David K. Shipler Page B

her due, she also cheated— or thought she did. Living with her surreptitiously was her boyfriend,Kevin, the father of her son. She was certain that if the Housing Authorityknew, she would be evicted, either because he was a convicted felon (two years for assault) or because his earning power, meager though it was, would have lifted her beyond eligibility. So slight are the margins between government assistance and outright destitution that small lies take on large significance in the search for survival.
    Kevin looked like a friendly genie—a solid 280 pounds, a shaved head, and a small earring in his right ear. His income was erratic. In decent weather he made $7.40 an hour working for a landscaper, who rewarded him with a free turkey to end the season at Thanksgiving—and then dumped him onto unemployment for the winter. He wanted to drive a truck or cut meat. He had received a butcher’s certificate in a training course during imprisonment, but when he showed the document from the penitentiary, employers didn’t rush to put a knife in his hand.
    The arithmetic of Christie’s life added up to tension, and you had to look hard through her list of expenditures to find fun or luxury. On the fifth she received her weekly child support check of $37.68 from Kevin (she got nothing from her daughter’s father, who was serving a long prison sentence for assault). The same day, she put $5 worth of gas in her car, and the next day spent $6 of her own money to take the day-care kids to the zoo. The eighth was payday, and her entire $330 check disappeared in a flash. First, there was what she called a $3 “tax” to cash her check, just one of several such fees for money orders and the like—a penalty for having no checking account. Immediately, $172 went for rent, including a $10 late fee, which she was always charged because she never had enough to pay by the first of the month. Then, because it was October and she had started to plan for Christmas, she paid $31.47 at a store for presents she had put on layaway, another $10 for gasoline, $40 to buy shoes for her two kids, $5 for a pair of corduroy pants at a secondhand shop, another $5 for a shirt, $10 for bell-bottom pants, and $47 biweekly for car insurance. The $330 was gone. She had no insurance on her TVs, clothes, furniture, or other household goods.
    Utilities and other bills got paid out of her second check toward the end of the month. Her phone usually cost about $43 a month, gas for the apartment $34, electricity $46, and prescriptions between $8 and $15. Her monthly car payment ran $150, medical insurance $72, and cable TV $43. Cable is no longer considered a luxury by low-income families that pinch and sacrifice to have it. So much of modern American culture now comes through television that the poor would be further marginalized withoutthe broad access that cable provides. Besides, it’s relatively cheap entertainment. “I just have basic,” Christie explained. “I have an antenna, but you can’t see anything, you get no reception.” And she needed good reception because she and Kevin loved to watch wrestling.
    One reason for Christie’s tight budget was the abundance of high-priced, well-advertised snacks, junk food, and prepared meals that provide an easy fallback diet for a busy working mother—or for anyone who has never learned to cook from scratch. Besides the staples of hamburger and chicken, “I buy sausages,” Christie said, “I buy the TV dinners ’cause I might be tired some days and throw it in the oven—like Salisbury steaks and turkey and stuff like that. My kids love pizza. I get the frozen pizzas. … I buy my kids a lot of breakfast things ’cause we’re up early and we’re out the door. You know, those cereal bars and stuff like that, they’re expensive! You know? Pop Tarts, cereal bars, Granola.” The cheaper breakfasts, like hot cereal, came only on weekends, when she had time. “They eat the hot cereal, but during the week