Grace: Omaha woman smart, hardworking and ‘stuck’ in low-wage hole

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/grace-omaha-woman-smart-hardworking-and-stuck-in-low-wage/article_f3a730bd-7a99-5e2c-9bfb-9a699facfb03.html




BRENDAN SULLIVAN/THE WORLD-HERALD
Veronica Cardenas of Omaha works the register at her $10-an-hour full-time job as assistant manager at the Stephen Center thrift store in South Omaha. The nonprofit’s executive director said she is one of the store’s best employees.

POSTED: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2014 1:00 AM
By Erin Grace / World-Herald columnist

Working full-time at $10 an hour, Veronica Cardenas feels both rich and poor at the same time.

She feels rich because, as assistant manager of a homeless shelter’s thrift store, she sees people a lot worse off than she is.

She feels poor because she doesn’t earn enough to feed or shelter her family. Veronica relies on food pantry donations to stretch her thin grocery budget. Evicted in June, she and her two small children, plus her disabled mother, had to move into a relative’s one-bedroom apartment. They all sleep in the living room.

“I’m going to work every day,” the 36-year-old assistant manager of the Stephen Center Thrift store said. “And still, I’m stuck.”

FULL story at link: http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/grace-omaha-woman-smart-hardworking-and-stuck-in-low-wage/article_f3a730bd-7a99-5e2c-9bfb-9a699facfb03.html