Americans Struggling to Make Ends Meet | A Hidden America with Diane Sawyer (Nightline)

we're about to introduce you to Americans desperate for you to know that they exist people all across the country working in jobs once considered middle class but now living far below a middle class lifestyle how did this dramatic income inequality happen on such a wide scale and what can be done about it here's ABC's Diane Sawyer boy the way Glenn Miller played return with us to the sights and sounds of Archie Bunker's neighborhood 30 years ago the television symbol of living in the American working class call rudyan California on the phone no we did open up the window in holl here's Archie's house today the blue one on the right Kathy Massie moved into Archie's neighborhood 40 years ago her husband was a truck driver she showed us who's buying these houses now um he's a banker he's a CEO kids today that are professionals with Advanced degrees can't even afford to live here she says in 1978 her house cost almost $60,000 today it's valued at $800,000 those homes were built for middleclass Americans they were built for teachers they were built for firefighters they were built for nurses and those types of people can't afford those homes anymore and these soaring house prices aren't just in New York it's happening in job markets across the country I love this town I love this community this is Mara I'm sorry I didn't expect to get emotional you are looking at the new face of displacement she's one of the people caught in the vicious choice between affording where you live and affording your life I think I grew up middle class my parents have four children they own their home I didn't imagine I would still be without any idea of how it would get into a house at this point her husband is a microbiologist at a lab they rent a small two-bedroom apartment in California make this Grand better colleage savings for the girls nothing add to it the 25% hike in rent in her town of Burling game California her neighborhood being squeezed by high-tech millionaires across the country in Kansas City we meet Terrence wise another American who believes you built a life on hard work he leaves home at 5:30 and returns 16 hours later he records the beginning of his day just like everybody in America heading to work trying to take care of my family morning how you doing when we meet him he has two jobs at fast food franchises one at Burger King a second at McDonald's it takes him eight buses to to commute to and from his work there three more buses to go thank you and there's a big change in the fast food worker back in 1980 the majority of fast food workers were teenagers but today 75% of these workers are in their 20s or older a third of them with children the American people some may look and say it's something you didn't do right and they think okay well you should have stayed in school or you should have did this well look I'm working I have a family we're at where we're at in this life right now this wasn't the life that Terrence had planned he says he was once a smart kid in high school dreaming of the University of South Carolina but he had to help with family bills I've been at uh Burger King what 11 years now $8 an hour after 11 years of service and yet after all those buses all those hours he says no vacation time no benefits you go into these McDonald's or any restaurant and you you notice the smiling faces but when he leaves he goes home to little food of his own or no lights no water and it's it's hard to see that through a smiling face Terrence points out his hours can be reduced so his income isn't guaranteed one of the hardest things watching the leftover food at the end of the shift what do they do with the food that is left over at where I work the food is thrown away two years ago a worker at another store posted this on YouTube you see this is all the food we have left at the end of the night that we have to throw away when weet Terren he has already become a passionate Advocate at the center of the national movement called Fight for 15 arguing for an increase in the federal minimum wage from $7.25 I know with $15 an hour if it started tomorrow I would only have to work one job then I would have an opportunity to go to work and then go to school the top companies in the fast food industry made combined profits of $6.6 billion in 2015 while one study shows 52% of all their employees are getting some form of Public Assistance is this a way taxpayers are subsidizing the industry nobody wants to get food stamps I want to go in and pull out my cash and buy my food and and and have insurance through my job and again he says a little more makes so much difference to go see a movie I haven't been to the movie since the Matrix and I don't know if you know how old that movie is yep this is our stock there has always been income inequality in America but as we said today it's more extreme take Silicon Valley the high-tech companies with the golden names where employees get free food any kind as much as they want free dry cleaning gyms on site and right there all around them thousands of other people also working very hard in the shadows there amid all the wealth we heard about the drivers of employee shuttle buses when we began our report we found drivers sleeping in the parking lot 35 to 40 bus drivers are here people are sleeping all over here on their cars it's just awful when you park inside and you have drivers uh covering their cars with blankets and towels these drivers are what's called contract employees working for companies who provide them to the high-tech industry when we met them they had few benefits little vacation no paid holidays I just turned the ignition switch on to accessory at that time one of the drivers fing Apple employees to their campus was Scott Peebles he was trying to save money for a rental apartment someplace nearby but at the time was living in his car using an inflatable mattress I mean if people would know this if corporations or the businesses that they work for there would probably be a guest that their employees living in a car or van cover on and then I just closed this door and say good night we saw the parallel lives near luxury houses trailers parked in the streets service employees living so differently from the people they serve and all over the country there are Business Leaders saying it's time to bring new ideas to American workers and their wages and this is a man named Mark bertolini who has ideas of his own he's the son of an auto worker successful CEO of a Goliath Company at the healthcare 49,000 employees berini says it all has to begin with corporate leaders who want to learn the lives of their workers where do they live and what are their lives like and it took me 6 months to get that data but once I got the data I was embarrassed he says when he became CEO he was surprised to discover that some of his fulltime employees were paid so little they had to go on public assistance I said how can we let this happen happen here we are a major Fortune 50 company with employees who are suffering every day to make ends meet so etno raised salaries to at least $16 an hour they're helping workers pay Down College debts and he vowed not to pass any of these costs on to the at a consumer 18% of the American public actually believes corporations are good 18% so you know how much lower do we need to go before we figure out this doesn't work and so instead of waiting for to go away why don't we step forward with some courage and conviction to make it better a new capitalism yeah let's reinvent it I mean we're the captains of it why shouldn't we be the ones that say here's the new why and berini says if there are CEOs in America who don't know where to start just give him a call A lot has changed since Diane reported from that parking lot in Silicon Valley the bus drivers voted to unionize and there was publicity around low wages and few benefits so Facebook coo Cheryl Sandberg responded and took action she said all Facebook contract employees should have higher salaries and 15 days of paid time off Apple and Google followed her lead and those drivers we met on the parking lot say it's made a huge difference and you remember Scott Peebles the man who was living in his car well he's now renting an apartment

Channel: ABC News

Views: 1,711,729

Keywords: American, Workers, Struggling, to, Make, Ends, Meet, Diane, Sawyer, struggle, afford, housing, or, pay, the, bills, fast, food, workers, shuttle, bus, drivers, economy, income, wages, working, salary, earnings, money, business, abc, abcnews, Jobs in America, average income, usa, jobs, money inequality, wage war, wage gap, minimum wage, Diane Sawyer special, Diane Sawyer interviews, Diane Sawyer hidden america

Id: I28_9eAwEW4

Length: 9min 31sec (571 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 14 2017