To learn more about the working poor of America read the U.S. Department of Labor's 2000 profile of them.

To learn more about the problems facing the children of the working poor, visit the National Center for Children in Poverty Website.

E-mail Seth T. Moore with questions or comments on this story.

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Gap between working poor and America grows wider

Longfellow Elementary School has the highest amount of low-income students in the Eau Claire school district. More than 70 percent apply for free or reduced lunch. (Photo by Seth T. Moore name)

Mike and Pat Schoenfelder have struggled to get by and make ends meet for a long time, but it wasn’t always that way.

Things were very different for the Schoenfelders when they got married about 25 years ago. At the time, Mike Schoenfelder had a good job as a salesman in the Denver area and Pat also had a full-time job. They both made decent incomes and the future looked bright. They had a savings account, a retirement fund, a start on college savings for their future kids and even money to have a little fun.

Optimistic about the future, the Schoenfelders moved to Georgia, where Mike Schoenfelder had gotten good job offer. Soon after arriving they found out that Schoenfelder was pregnant with their first child. With Mike Schoenfelder doing so well Schoenfelder quit her job. The couple decided to buy a house and settle in. Then the couple got some devastating news.

Mike Schoenfelder’s company had decided to restructure. Management brought in a younger salesman to take over for the senior salesman who had built the sales territories. Mike Schoenfelder’s territory, one he had built from the ground up, was taken over by a younger salesman who would work for less and had fewer obligations restricting his travel. Mike Schoenfelder was devastated and out of a job.

Trying to recover was not easy for the couple. Mike Schoenfelder could have gotten another job as a salesman, but it would not have been as good as his last job. It was a dilemma for the couple. Schoenfelder said that at this point it came down to some moral choices. They could either have Mike Schoenfelder take the job and never be home or take their chances and hope that he could find another job to support their growing family.

They decided to choose the latter. So they packed up the family and moved to Eau Claire, where Mike Schoenfelder had found a job as a car salesman. He was making about one-third of what he used to, but it solved the problem of him being on the road all the time. Then the couple was dealt another blow. The car dealership decided to close its Eau Claire branch and Mike Schoenfelder was out of yet another job.

Now established in Eau Claire and with no money to move, Mike Schoenfelder had to take a job paying even less than before. With things being very flat in his industry, Mike Schoenfelder had to swallow his pride and take a job as a truck driver for a delivery service in town.

Now the Schoenfelders are struggling to keep up with all their financial responsibilities and are falling further and further behind.

Along with 36 million other Americans, Schoenfelder and her husband are the working poor. They have jobs, but are living just within reach of the poverty level. The number of working poor, who get dime raises, unpaid sick days and no benefits, is increasing. The gap between them and the rest of society is growing wider. According to the Census Bureau’s 2000 Census, 78,188 Wisconsin families are living below the poverty line.

Families are officially poor in the United States if they earn income at or below the federal poverty level, which is currently $18,850 for a family of four. Low-income families earn up to twice the federal poverty level, which is about $37,700 for a family of four. That is enough to provide basic necessities such as adequate food, stable housing and health care.

This is not just a problem of urban or metropolitan areas; even smaller cities such as Eau Claire are feeling the effects. In Eau Claire, 7,757 people are living below the poverty level, according to the 2000 Census, which is 12.6 percent of the city’s population. Also, nearly 800 families in the city are living in poverty.

There are many different reasons why these people are struggling. A low minimum wage and lack of education are two of the biggest reasons for the increases in this population, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire economics professor Edward Young said.

The minimum wage has been $5.15 since 1997.

Young says he believes that the working poor are struggling for many reasons but thinks one is most to blame.

“They have a whole catalog of problems,” he said, “but the minimum wage is really hurting them. It has fallen way behind the standard of living.”

Young, who has done research in this area, says that the minimum wage’s actual value is $2.71.

“You can’t support yourself, let alone a family, on that,” Young said.

A minimum wage worker would have to work more than 67 hours a week just to keep a family of four above the poverty line. At the current minimum wage, a full-time worker earns approximately $10,712 a year.

Congress is currently considering raising the minimum wage by $1.50 to $6.65 in three installments, according to the Almanac of Policy Issues, an online database of past and current policies.

Lack of education is another barrier to escaping poverty.

Education and the likelihood of living in poverty were closely related among those in the labor force, according to a profile of the working poor done by the U.S. Department of Labor in 2000. High school dropouts were more than twice as likely as high school graduates to be counted among the working poor. The incidence of being counted among the working poor declined further as educational attainment rose.

Linda Struck, who works at the Eau Claire County Job Center as a resources supervisor, says she thinks that the working poor would like to go further in school but can’t due to different reasons.

“These people want to get educated, they just don’t have the means to do it,” she said.

People with a high school diploma or below have a poverty rate of 18.9 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

The economic downturn has also played a big part in why so many families have fallen on hard times.

“When the economy is doing well the number (of working poor) goes down,” said Young. “If (the economy) is doing badly the number rises.”

Along with a declining economy comes a decline in jobs. Struck says that it has been harder to get people jobs than it was before.

“I remember we use to place people right away,” she said. “We are still placing people, but sometimes it takes a while.”

Another disturbing sign is many of the jobs that working poor people hold won’t lead the out of their crisis.

Five of the 10 fastest-growing occupations over the next decade will be of the menial, dead-end variety, including retail clerks, janitors and cashiers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Bush administration and congress have done little in the way of helping the working poor. They have scaled back programs and funding to help pay for $600 billion in tax breaks that President Bush gave to the wealthiest Americans. The tax cuts went mostly to those earning more than $288,800 a year, according to Melvin Claxton and Ronald Hansen of the Detroit News.

Claxton and Hansen continue saying that record federal deficits have accumulated and social spending has been trimmed to offset the loss of tax revenue. Job training, housing, higher education and an array of social services are some of the programs that have been affected by the cuts, which have taken away valuable safety nets that help these people, get out of poverty.

Young said that he doesn’t recall any legislation that was passed by the Bush administration to help the poor.

“I can’t think of a single policy that Bush enacted to help these people,” he said.

Schoenfelder disagrees.

She says she believes that tax credits have helped her family.

“Each party has their own cuts that help different people,” she said. “I get $1,800 each tax time for my kids. I didn’t ask for it, but it really helps out.”

During the recent presidential election, the poor and working poor were not discussed that much. Traditionally, candidates running for president focus on the issues of groups in a society that vote, like the organized elderly. Only about 40 percent of the working poor vote, as opposed to 74 percent of the investor class, according to the Russell Sage Foundation, a social science research center. The majority of the working poor are often overwhelmed by their own lives and difficulties, and are not engaged in politics.

Schoenfelder is concerned about herself and her husband, but more concerned about her children, Jaime, 17, and Megan, 15.

“When I wake in the morning I don’t worry about myself so much,” she said. “I worry about my kids."

One in six children in the United States lives in poverty. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington think tank, reported recently that 43 million people are living in low-income working families with children. In Eau Claire, 8.5 percent of children under 18 live in low-income families, according to city of Eau Claire reports.

The National Center for Children in Poverty spokesperson Carole Oshinsky says the research and policy organization is trying to better comprehend this problem.

“We promote a better understanding of poverty,” she said. “Our research shows that a family’s financial situation affects development, from their readiness for school to their ability to create a better life for themselves.”

In the Eau Claire School District, the majority of the low-income students are taught mostly by two elementary schools, Longfellow, 500 Balcom St., and Lakeshore, 711 Lake St. Both schools are working to help these children close the gap between them and other students.

Longfellow Principal Kris Dimock says that children of the working poor face a plethora of problems each day. 

“They immediately start at a deficiency,” she said. “They don’t know the basics of nutrition and hygiene. They have never been read to or taken to the library. They just haven’t been given the opportunities and the T.V. is always on.”

But the biggest problem she says inhibits poor children is the absence of someone to look up to.

“Not having appropriate role models and support to know that they can break the cycle of poverty and know that there is a another solution,” Dimock said. “They can succeed, do well and make good choices.”

At Longfellow, there are a number of programs in place that are trying to help aid these children and get them to the level of the other students. Dimock says they provide smaller class sizes, English tutoring, after school programs, reading lessons, free and reduced lunches and summer programs.

The faculty is also participating in a book study to help them better understand low-income students and their needs. The book “A Framework for Understanding Poverty,” by Ruby K. Payne helps teachers establish different techniques for teaching low-income students, Dimock said.

“It is different teaching these students,” she said. “It is a different set of rules and strategies that we use. We want to better understand the people that we are serving and structure programs to better serve their needs.”

Dimock says she is still optimistic, but is afraid that this problem will affect the rest of these children’s lives.

“I could cry my eyes out about all the kids that have so much potential and will never realize it,” she said.

More than 70 percent of the children at Longfellow are low-income students, according to Lakeshore School Social Worker Ellen Higley.

Higley, who has been a social worker for about 10 years, said she knows many children and parents who are struggling.

One kindergartner who was sick had to be taken home by Higley due to the phone being disconnected at the child’s emergency number. Upon arrival at the student’s home Higley found out the reason why.

“I asked his mother and she said everything was fine,” Higley said. “Then Grandma told the truth.”

It turned out that the mother could not pay the phone bill because she had a surgery and had just gotten back to work part-time at her minimum wage job, Higley said. The mother had no insurance coverage. Higley helped get the mother some needed aid.

Higley is working with area churches that are helping with basic needs of families, that are not being met by other programs. The half-dozen churches are focusing on schools with a majority of low-income students.

The Good Neighbor Project was started by the Rev. JoAnne Juett, pastor of First Baptist Church, who wanted to reach out to needy families in the community.

“I was really touched and realized the need of our neighbors,” she said. “We felt we had a responsibility as a church to reach out and fill their needs.”

The project provides family with clothing, toiletries, books, school materials, medical care payments, gas cards, bus passes and co-payments on different things.

“Through the social workers, they tell us what the families need and we try to provide,” Juett said.

The Good Neighbor Project in no way proselytizes people to come to church and is done in anonymity.

“It is not our desire to bring people to the church,” Juett said. “It is something we do based on what we believe in.”

According to the National Interfaith Hospitality Network, families with children are the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population in the United States.

Eau Claire’s Interfaith Hospitality Network, Inc., provides shelter, meals and comprehensive support services to homeless families. Executive Director Kelly Christianson says the numbers of families are increasing in Eau Claire and the class division is growing bigger.

“The gap is widening between part of society and the rest,” she said. “Every month more and more people are coming to us looking for help.”

For the poor, more than 80 percent of their income can be consumed by childcare and housing.

“I see more and more people coming in with a sense of hopelessness,” Christianson said. “They are just overcome by everything.”

Schoenfelder can relate. She says she often feels weighed down by all her responsibilities.

“I almost always feel overwhelmed,” she said. “The stress of never having enough to go around is almost too much at times.”

Schoenfelder says that it affects her mood and hopes that it does not have an effect on her family.

“I used to be very positive, and sometimes now I am not,” she said. “I try not to discourage them even though I may feel different.”

In contrast to many, Schoenfelder says she doesn’t believe that a family financial situation has negative effects on children, but rather positive.

“When you have to struggle together and work together to make things work,” she said, “it really brings you closer together.”

Despite all the things that have happened to Schoenfelder and her family, said she is still optimistic about the future.

“I remain very hopeful that things can change and we will be able to turn things around,” she said. “I guess God is trying to teach us a lesson, but all I want to know is when will we get through it.”

Next in the series Nicole Robinson will explore health care problems that the working poor face.