Vignettes illustrate how our businesses work together to create solutions to address the intertwined problems of our impact customers.
Mariama
38-year-old single mother, Overnight security worker
A 38-year-old single mother to three children whom we call “Mariama” exemplified these compounding challenges and tradeoffs that left her “struggling up and down for years.” She had been unemployed for a year before ultimately accepting an overnight security job at a homeless shelter. She decided to work night shifts so she could decrease her babysitting costs and still be there for her children during the day, resulting in her getting only two to three hours of sleep a night. Despite her full-time work, Mariama was spending over half her gross income, and close to 80 percent of her net income, on rent.
Though Mariama holds an Associate’s degree, she has been unable to find entry-level work in her field, reporting that employers are only interested in hiring applicants with previous work experience. Mariama wants to study for and achieve various security industry certifications that could increase the wages an employer would pay her. But she said she could not even apply for a student loan because of her outstanding student loan debts for previous education programs.
At the time of the interview, Mariama had recently had an emergency appendectomy. Her boss had not scheduled her for more than 24 hours a week since her return from the hospital, even though she was always asking for more hours and even sought out others’ shifts to get overtime.
She described feeling caught between the inability to get more hours, take care of herself, and provide for her kids, and the need to obtain valuable industry certifications to increase her hourly wage: “[It] is hard for me right now to take care of myself and my kids and further my education, so I'm stuck.”
Y Solve Portfolio Solutions for Mariama
Frank
48-year-old, 3rd generation automotive factory worker
Frank is 48 years old, he lives in a suburb of Michigan with his two kids, Cassie and Tim, and his wife Sarah. He is a 3rd generation automotive factory worker who started working right out of high school. Sarah grew up in the same town as Frank and after high school went to college (using student loans) to get her teaching degree. After college she moved back to town to begin her teaching career, during that time Frank and her reconnected and fell in love.
After years at the same combustible engine car plant, Frank decides after everything that he has read, his friends talk about the world’s cars are going to be EV, the amount of government support that he hear about, that he can finally benefit from technology if he pursues a job at an EV production facility. He wants to make sure he has a job until he is ready to retire, financially prepare for retirement, put kids through college, pay off Sarah’s student loan debt, help elderly mother with expenses not covered by Social Security, pension, health insurance because of rising costs.
During the pandemic Tim struggled to learn remotely. He feels like he missed out on graduating from middle school and celebrating with his friends. Now, he spends most of his time in his room playing online video games and has lost interest in team sports that he use to love. He was ready to try out for baseball but decided to quit altogether.
Cassie has a passion for technology. However, her school is limited on technology resources, and since her mom and dad do not have any experience in the tech world they do not know what resources to provide her. Her local guidance counselor can only offer options for local universities, trade schools, and local business programs. She simply has no idea how to build an educational path to support her career goal.
Sarah enjoys being able to spend time with her kids during the summer time but is worried about her career future. The teachers are thinking of striking to increase teacher salaries, and Sarah is worried that her pension earnings may not be enough if everything is increasing in price. There are hints that the teacher union pension plan is underfunded because of the influx of teachers that will all be retiring and claiming pensions at the same time. On top of those stresses, she is suffering from perimenopause and has been going to doctors appointments for months with no resolution, and the balances are building. Sarah is contemplating upward career movement but she is unclear how and wonders if there are other options.
Frank and Sarah save up $1,200 to put him through a data and tech certificate program. With that he is able to go work at an EV plant. for 3 years. 5000 manufacturing positions in plant. Factory is doing well but sales of EV more than $50k are slowing. Management, the board, strategy consultants, and Wall Street believe the focus should be on $25k EVs. In order to produce a line of vehicles at that price point, they are going to utilize robots to automate numerous tasks in the manufacturing process.
The robots will eliminate 3,000 manufacturing positions of those 3000, 1000 employees will be shifted new jobs created to support the maintenance, infrastructure, and integration of the robotics.
A primary finding is the extent to which finances, employment, public benefits, and other needs such as health, housing, and neighborhoods intersect, complicate, and amplify one another. Data from the study reflect that challenges in one area—such as work—can reverberate in others, such as childcare, health, access to benefits, and housing options.
“A Case Study in Compounding Challenges and Tradeoffs”, Abt Global, Anna Jefferson, Ph.D., Elizabeth Giardino
Y Solve Portfolio Solutions for Frank and his family
