Jessica Marino says her story is one of desperation.
For much of the past couple of years, Marino says desperation has guided her decisions as she has clawed through trauma and unsafe situations in pursuit of stability for her 9-year-old son, Sam.
“A lot of times, the decisions we make when we make them out of desperation are not going to be good choices because you’re sort of just grasping at something,” she said. “You’re trying to paddle upstream with nothing.”
Marino fears nothing but more desperation lies beyond both options at her latest crossroads.
That crossroads gave her the option to escape a $900-a-month Rochester apartment she says was unsafe, but do so by moving into a $1,614 Dover apartment her paycheck and savings won’t be able to sustain unless her circumstances cha
Many North Carolinians live paycheck to paycheck, unable to meet the ever-increasing gap between wages and expenses. COVID-19 has widened this gap and some residents are experiencing difficulties in paying household expenses for the first time.
Since March, working families have experienced job loss or shifted to a work-from-home environment. The unemployment rate in North Carolina reached 12.9% in April 2020, a sharp increase from 3.6% in January 2020. Due to school closures, many families have cut back on work hours, paid extra for childcare, or purchased technology equipment for remote learning. According to United Way of North Carolina’s COVID Impact Survey, 24% of the more than 900 respondents with children experienced an increase in childcare costs and 36% started working from home to provide in-home childcare.