You Call This A Middle Class? “I’m Trying Not to Lose My House” [View all]

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http://www.alternet.org/economy/you-call-middle-class-im-trying-not-lose-my-house



It took less than two years for Kim Brown to go from middle class to minimum wage.

In the fall of 2011, Brown was a Web support technician for an electronics distributor in Chicago, helping customers navigate the company’s website. She had been in the job for 11 years, earning a $45,000 salary, plus benefits.

“I wasn’t rich, but I felt like I had a life,” she said — as good a definition of middle class as any.

That November, the company announced it was moving its office to Cleveland. All the employees were invited to go along. All declined, including Brown, who had lived in Chicago her entire adult life, since arriving to attend college. Having been laid off, Brown was eligible for unemployment benefits — which she figured would last until she found a new job. The last time she’d looked, in 1999, she’d found work right away.

Despite sending out “hundreds of résumés each week,” Brown couldn’t land a full-time job. At age 46, with every month of unemployment making her less attractive to employers, she was wondering whether she ever would. She exhausted her 401K, and only a sympathetic landlord, who cut the rent to $800 a month, allowed Brown to hang on to her one-bedroom apartment.