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SUCH FIGURES WILL MAKE IT EVEN HARDER for politicians to tout the virtues of work over welfare. "We've got years of stagnant wages and people who are working hard and being punished for it," President Bill Clinton told a crowd of enthusiastic New Jersey autoworkers last week. "The question is, What are we going to do about it?" He talks cheerily about enterprise zones and community block grants. Republican Bob Dole talks about patience, while the Republicans set about shrinking government, shedding regulations and flattening taxes. "We've got to take a long-term view of this," he says. "I think we're on the right track. If we're not, I assume they'll throw us out." In the meantime the working poor work, and wonder what it would be like if the politicians had to walk in their shoes, just for a day or so.
CLOSE TO THE EDGE
IN ATLANTA, A QUARTER OF THE PEOPLE who call the homeless hot line are working people: schoolteachers, chefs, computer-maintenance men, airline flight attendants. The standard recommendation is that a family should budget 30% of its income for housing. Among the working poor, 70% is more typical. "It doesn't take much in the way of an unforeseen circumstance to spin these people right out of control," says Anita Beaty, director of Atlanta's Task Force for the Homeless. "You cannot pay rent and child care on minimum wage."
David Harris works from 3:30 to 11:30 p.m. at the Travelers Aid Society shelter in Salt Lake City; his wife Nancy Tillack works there from midnight to 8 a.m. This means that if they need anything more than a couple of hours of sleep, they are never together for more than an hour or so a day.
"When we're home, we have no real life," Tillack says. They take turns looking after six-year-old MacKenzie; at least they don't have to pay for day care out of their combined weekly income of $720. "It's hard on her," Tillack admits sadly. "She has our time when we're awake enough."
Soon after moving to Utah from North Carolina, they were homeless for three months. "It's payday to payday. If one of us gets sick, it would be trouble," says Tillack. "We both love our jobs. We feel useful and productive, but I don't think anybody has job security anymore. We work hard to make ourselves indispensable."
THE TAX CRUNCH