What recovery? Working poor struggle to pay bills

" "There is a systematic ratcheting down of jobs that once could support a family," says Greg Denier, a spokesman with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. "The real question is, what does this mean for the future of the American worker?"
The fate of the working poor is becoming a major issue for politicians, union groups and activists who are now calling for reform. Unions are launching membership drives and protests - part of an effort to preserve benefits and boost pay for service-sector jobs in much the same way that union muscle helped raise the standard of living for manufacturing workers in the mid-20th century.
The rise in low-wage workers is also a catalyst for activists who are waging campaigns to pass living-wage ordinances, which are local laws that require some businesses to pay employees more than the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour. The grass-roots effort is having an impact. So far, more than 120 ordinances mandating living wages have been passed. In San Francisco, a citywide wage of $8.50 an hour went into effect in February.
The increase is shaping new public dialogue about poverty in America. Philip Coltoff, who is chief executive of the philanthropic Children's Aid Society, looks out of the window of his Park Avenue South office in New York. Bike messengers, taxi drivers and street vendors hawking hot dogs and ball caps populate the street. These people, he says, are the new faces of the working poor.
"This is a very interesting sociological change. We've created a new class of poor. There is this huge group of people who want to work, who are working, but it's a form of being indentured," Coltoff says. "America has always been built on the belief that you can do better, but we have shut down the ladder to the middle class." "