APPLETON — No one is immune from sliding into poverty. Just ask Michele Marino of Little Ch... Valley's working poor look f
Ten years ago she was a stay-at-home mom with an attorney for a husband, four children, a beautiful home and nice cars. Then came the day police officers arrested her husband and he was sentenced to jail for white-collar crime, leaving her $80,000 in debt.
"All of a sudden I had to get a job," said Marino, now 46 and a single mom who works full time during the day at Conkey's Book Store and cleans medical offices five nights a week.
She said both jobs, plus child support for her youngest son, put her family's annual income in the $25,000 range, just above the poverty line, where she is stuck.
The panel preceded a discussion of the novel "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America," part of Project Promise, an initiative to raise poverty awareness in the Fox Cities.
She said she had no idea what obstacles faced her when she entered the work force two days after her husband's arrest. "I thought this job was temporary, supplemental. I believed I'd just do this until he got back on his feet. I didn't realize my entire life was going up in smoke."
People say when the going gets rough just find a better job, but it's not that easy, said Marino who gets impatient with people who think they have all the answers to solving the issues of the working poor.
"It's not just a matter of if you work hard enough you can pull yourself out," Marino said. "Once you are down there it is incredibly hard to get out."
Because of her now ex-husband's problems, her credit rating suffered. "I've had employers tell me they would not schedule interviews with me because they ran credit checks and mine was poor."
But even as Marino struggles — more than half her paycheck goes for rent and utilities and she cannot afford health insurance — she feels fortunate.
"My boss, John Zimmerman, is a family-oriented person and I really appreciate his flexibility in letting me be a mother and work," she said. "I wanted to stay at Conkey's because of all those advantages, but I had to get a second job to make it work."
Marino said that second job helps pay bills and cover what she feels are her "financial obligations" to her kids, like camp, guitar lessons and, most recently, prom expenses for her teenage son.
She said she also provides food and shelter for her three older children who live at home summers and during breaks from college. "I can't charge them for rent and food because they are working to put themselves through school."
Marino, who would like to see more affordable housing in the Fox Cities, more care for families whose "breadwinner" is incarcerated and child support that extends beyond age 18, said she is proud of how she has managed, yet frustrated.
"I feel very blessed about so many things in my life, but I want people to open their eyes," she said. "This affects more of the population than they believe."
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