Kenny gets home at five p.m. after completing his job at Bonnie's Barricades a small company that puts up barriers, sandbags, and signs around construction sights. Aside from their weekly meal at McDonald's, the Mertens do most things at home to keep down prices. The family takes one driving vacation each summer cross- country just to get out of the regular routine. The vacation is highly needed in the opinion of the Mertens. Kenny feels one of the biggest factors in his shortage of money is inflation.
Inflation is a big reason that lies behind some poor families' being poor.
Another factor of the Mertens' life is job shortages. In the nineteen sixties, jobs were plentiful for a high school graduate, young people could easily get wages that they could live on from one day to the next. Utility companies began downsizing, and many factory jobs were replaced by service-industry jobs, which paid less. The Mertens don't qualify for white-collar positions which are the ones mostly up for grabs now in Des Moines. Bonita's brother Eugene, after graduating from collage, could not get a job and took the United States Postal Service Test which he passed.