DERO SANFORD
THE FORGOTTEN
AMERICANS
difficulty in finding a ride to and
from the city, along with the dearth
of even low-paying opportunities
within a wide radius of her home,
made the effort Sisyphean.
By her calculus—and that of
many in her station—it’s safer to
maintain her benefits than to suffer
the subsidy cuts that come with a
minimum-wage income and longdistance travel to and from home.
“If you move a little forward, they
push you right back,” Davis said. “It
doesn’t make sense.”
That sentiment is echoed by
Marion Tyler, a licensed social
worker with the Cary Christian
Center, a nonprofit organization
HUFFINGTON
10.21.12
that has helped Davis navigate
the vagaries of her young pregnancy. Tyler, once a teen mother
herself, said she benefited from
the benevolence of an employer
who was willing to support her as
she earned a bachelor’s and then
master’s degree. Without that support—exceedingly rare, she said—
she would likely still be spinning
her wheels on subsidies.
Far more often, the young and
poor wash up at low-paying service or fast-food jobs. Tyler recalls
flipping burgers at McDonald’s,
which caused her government
benefits—$96 in cash assistance
at the time, along with $118 in
food stamps for her and her son
each month—to plummet.
“So I quit my job,” she says.
The walls of
a town hall in
Cary, Miss.,
are lined with
memorabilia
including
black-andwhite yearbook
photos.
While Cary’s
population is
two-thirds
black, virtually
every face
pictured
is white.