Another obstacle is the cost of living. Her boss, David Sadat, says he, too, has barely enough to live on after paying rent. It doesn't matter if you work full time. It's still not enough. The number of full-time workers that don't make enough to rise above poverty has risen from 1.5 million in the 1970s to almost 3 million in 1998.
Many mothers leaving welfare for full-time jobs remain poor.
There are some signs of progress. Hourly wages for those at the bottom of the income ladder have risen since 1996. Many of these people work part time. Overall poverty, at 12.7 percent of US households in 1998, stands at the lowest level since 1979, according to the Census Bureau. Yet even as overall poverty has been falling, the proportion of full-time workers that are poor rose from 2.5 percent in 1997 to almost 3 percent in 1998.