Part Time Lives? from Temple, Tx.

There is a young woman in our community who is suffering with a problem that is becoming all too common. She is a single mother of two, and is recently separated from her live-in partner. She now needs a job to support herself and her children. So every day she looks on-line, and a few days a week goes out to physically look for a job. She has a good work ethic and good background, so she gets job offers. There is just one problem. All the offers are for part-time work.

This is not an uncommon problem in several cities in the state of Texas, right now. It is more common in smaller cities. More and more businesses are hiring part-time workers only. They do not have to pay for benefits such as medical insurance for part-time workers. Some of these businesses are even offering less than twenty hours of work per employee per week. They usually also pay only slightly above minimum wage.

Now, I happen to know that this young woman leads a full-time life. Her children do, as well. Like all children alive in this world, they breathe all day long. They are healthy children. One goes to school, walks, talks, eats, and lives every day, all day long. He is not her part-time child. The other is still an infant, but trust me, he eats, sleeps, cries, plays, and lives every day, all day long. He is not her part-time baby. And when they get sick, they are not suffering part-time illnesses.

This young woman would love not to have to rely on any government system to help her support her two children. But what choice does she have? She cannot find full-time work to support her full-time life. And taking two part-time jobs isn't working either, due to the distances involved, and the hours between the end of one job and the start of another. This is happening elsewhere in the country too, I'm hearing. It is the opinion of this reporter that the government should pay more attention to some of these "little problems" that Americans are facing every day.

Can't we find a way to make full-time jobs available even for unskilled, but still full-time people? These people, in most cases, want to work. Though circumstances may have helped prevent them from being professionals in any career, they still live the same lives as career professionals. By this I mean that they don't live only part-time lives.