{"id":148,"date":"2015-02-06T05:16:23","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T05:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stories.kera.org\/inside-neighborhood\/?p=148"},"modified":"2017-06-23T18:34:29","modified_gmt":"2017-06-23T18:34:29","slug":"life-at-the-minimum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/inside-neighborhood\/life-at-the-minimum\/","title":{"rendered":"Living On $10 An Hour, While Trying To Pay The Bills"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a big difference between having a job and having a job that pays enough to live on. In Dallas, some Jubilee Park residents know what it feels like to watch a paycheck vanish in a haze of bills, rent and childcare. They include a single mom trying to get by on $10 an hour.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
<\/p>\n

\"Tricia

Tricia Oliver, a single mom in Jubilee Park, estimates she’d need to earn $2,000 a month to feel comfortable paying her expenses. She brings home $1,100 a month. Photo\/Courtney Collins<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

Many people in Jubilee Park have lived here for decades. They\u2019ve watched it change from solid and middle class to crime-ridden and poverty-ravaged.<\/p>\n

And they\u2019ve watched it change again, to what it is today — a quiet neighborhood with low crime, but with plenty of folks still on the financial edge.<\/p>\n

\"Tricia

Tricia Oliver’s son, Jayden, is 5 — and he loves to read. Photo\/Courtesy Tricia Oliver<\/p><\/div>\n

Jubilee Park is friendly to newcomers, too. Tricia Oliver thinks so. She and her son Jayden found an apartment here four months ago to be near family.<\/p>\n

She lives down the street from the Jubilee Park Community Center. Eventually, Jayden will attend the after-school program there. He\u2019s in pre-K now, but he doesn\u2019t read like a kid who just turned 5 years old.<\/p>\n

Mom and son read the book \u201cMy Mommy and Me.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I\u2019m with you mommy, I love to skip and run. <\/em><\/p>\n

I know that every day with you will be a lot of fun. \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cGood job!\u201d she told him.<\/p>\n

They continued reading.<\/p>\n

I am very, very happy when I am with you!
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Racing from one job to another<\/h3>\n

Oliver had two jobs when she moved to Dallas from New York — one at Whole Foods, another at RadioShack. That meant working seven days a week.<\/p>\n

\"Tricia

Tricia Oliver with her son, Jayden. Photo\/Christina Ulsh<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cSome days I would go to work at 4 o\u2019clock in the morning to Whole Foods, leave there at 11 and then run to RadioShack and do another four or five hours,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

It added up to 60-hour work weeks. She barely had time to breathe. After saving enough money for an apartment, she dropped the second job.<\/p>\n

Oliver now works 35 hours a week at Whole Foods and makes $10 an hour. That\u2019s 38 percent more than the minimum wage. She doesn\u2019t get government assistance or child support. Ten bucks an hour is it.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy reality is that rent is due on the first,\u201d Oliver said. \u201cAnd I try to pay that before the first even comes. The water bill is due, light bill is due, cellphone bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her take-home pay? Eleven hundred dollars a month. To feel comfortable paying all of her expenses, she thinks she\u2019d need to earn almost twice that amount.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike $2,000 a month?\u201d she said. \u201cKnowing the lifestyle that I live, which is not the movies or the Chuck E. Cheese or the Dave & Buster\u2019s — it\u2019s just rent and bills and necessary items — I\u2019d say I\u2019d be able to live comfortably with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Photo\/Lara

Single parents in Dallas County, including Jubilee Park, need to earn $19.13 an hour in order to make a living wage, according to Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Photo\/Lara Solt<\/p><\/div>\n

Limited Resources, Limited Options<\/h3>\n

Researchers agree. Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a living wage calculator<\/a>. It estimates a single parent with one child in Dallas County needs to make $19.13 an hour.<\/p>\n

\"Jubilee

Jubilee Park is a Dallas neighborhood between Interstate 30 and Fair Park. Photo\/Lara Solt<\/p><\/div>\n

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Two years ago, 400,000 Texas workers were paid that — or less.<\/p>\n

How are you supposed to survive if you don\u2019t make $19 an hour?<\/p>\n

Candace Thompson with the Jubilee Park Community Center says there aren\u2019t a lot of options.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could only hope that there would be family that would be willing to care for my child when I would be away at work,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cBut a lot of people don\u2019t have those resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oliver is lucky. Her mother keeps Jayden after preschool lets out.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore I came here, I was paying for daycare, which was $150 a week,\u201d she said. \u201cThen I was still paying someone $45 to watch him Saturdays and Sundays. And at that time I was making $8.10 an hour.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s even tougher if you have several children.<\/p>\n

MIT\u2019s living wage calculator says if you\u2019re a single parent with three kids, you need to make almost $29 an hour to get by. That\u2019s $60,000 a year.<\/p>\n

For folks in Jubilee Park, those kinds of jobs are almost impossible to find.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what pushes people like Laurie Larrea. She\u2019s president of Workforce Solutions Greater Dallas<\/a>, a nonprofit.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting a check isn\u2019t necessarily going to be the solution,\u201d Larrea said. \u201cThey have to get employment and a living wage, a meaningful wage, and sustain that for a long period.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"jubilee28NEW\"

Several check-cashing stores are located near Jubilee Park in Dallas. Many Jubilee residents rely on these types of stores because they don’t have bank accounts. Photo\/Lara Solt<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Video Snapshot: Meet A Jubilee Neighbor<\/h3>\n

Sovannsamnang \u201cSoso\u201d Soksovann is a civilian public service officer. He fled Cambodia\u2019s killing fields and came to the United States in 1984. \u201cSoso\u201d moved to Dallas in 2001. He works and lives with his family in Jubilee Park.<\/em><\/p>\n