Double-A in baseball, major league in poverty

Our neighbors in Reading now live in the most poverty-stricken city in America:

In the mid-1990s, welfare reform resulted in more women joining the work force. At the time, jobs were plentiful, but now work is scarce and low-income families' lives have become hectic balancing acts to keep the few benefits they have.

Ms. Santiago loses her subsidized day care if she is out of work for more than 13 days, she said. The loss would take months to reinstate, so she hurries to find any work, whatever it pays, every time her temp job ends. Earning more than $10 an hour means losing health insurance, she said, though her children remain covered through Medicaid.

And jobs just seem to pay less. Ms. Santiago recently took a temporary job at a candy factory where she had worked more than eight years ago, when she was still in her 20s, before she had completed her associate's degree. At the time she was making $10.50 an hour. In her most recent stint, her hourly wage was $9.25.

"Eight years ago I said, 'I don't want to do this, I have to further my education,' " she said. "And now here I am, still packing candy, and making less."