Shawn L. Bird

In the last year or two I’ve learned a lot about the challenges of the working poor. I thought that when we were students, that we were poor.  While our income well below the ‘poverty line’ we never felt poor. We shopped for clothes and furniture at thrift stores and garage sales.  We filled our grocery cart with products in vibrant yellow boxes, and we certainly weren’t out buying extras, but we didn’t feel poor. We never had bill collectors call us, or had utilities cut off because we were behind in our payments. We never asked our parents for help to cover our day to day expenses, although being parents, they would often send us home with generous care packages when we went to visit.

Our children arrived while we were juggling university and jobs. The magazine the hospital gave me  said that it cost $3500 to get everything a…