Edgar Sanchez is worried. For 12 years he's been driving his bobtail truck at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, transporting containers that come off the big cargo ships on short hauls around the Southland. He's carved out a decent living for his wife, Margarita, and their children: Christina, 8; Alejandra, 10; and Edgar, Jr., 15.

But things have steadily gotten worse the last few years in what the 49-year-old truck driver calls a "broken system."

As an independent contractor, who isn't employed by either the shipping or freight companies, Edgar is responsible for maintaining his 1992 Volvo truck, which has 850,000 hard miles on it. In addition, he has to pay $170 a week for insurance that only covers the cargo he hauls and port equipment.

While his kids and wife have health insurance through the state's Healthy Families program, Edgar is on his own. "I've tried to get like Blue Cross or other insurance, but it's very expensive," he reports. "So I cannot afford to get sick. Praise the Lord I'm healthy."

Three months ago, however, Margarita almost had a stroke and is currently on expensive high blood pressure medication that isn't covered by the government's plan.

Recently, the family's phone was disconnected because Edgar couldn't come up with an extra $70 for the bill. The main priority was paying for supplies for the children returning to school. And soon the rent will be due.

"Right now the expenses on my truck are already heavy and everything is going up, like diesel fuel and insurance," he says. "And lately, the situation at the port is changing dramatically. Before we used to have more loads. But they are expanding the railroad yards, and the trains are picking up our loads. We have less and less work now."

The solution is simple but grueling. Edgar just keeps putting in more and more hours. Monday through Friday, he usually works from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m., but some days stretch out to 15-hour marathons. Saturday adds another nine hours to a 70-to-80-hour week.

"The problem is the long lines," he explains. "If I want to start at 6 p.m., I have to show up to get in line at 4 o'clock in the afternoon so I can be the first one to get my load. Then, for example, I have to rush to the City of Industry to bring a container to General Electric there. I have to look for an empty container and then rush back to the harbor to get in line again.

"Now I have to fight to make a living," he adds. "I have to work a lot longer to make the same amount of money I was making before because I have three kids and they need my support."

Last year Edgar Sanchez cleared about $32,000, which falls below 135 percent of the federal poverty guideline for a family of five living in Los Angeles County.

Working poverty
On August 28, LAANE (Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy) released a study based on new U.S. Census data showing there were a lot of hard-working individuals like Edgar Sanchez in the county, struggling to keep themselves and their families afloat.

In fact, the report, which supplements the census figures with data from local studies, found the "steady erosion of manufacturing jobs and the rapid growth of low-wage service sector industries have solidified the county's status as one of the nation's capitals of working poverty."

In 2006, six out of ten Los Angeles County families living in extreme poverty (defined as below the stringent federal poverty level, which was set in the early 1960s and doesn't take into account geographic differences in the cost of living) had adults working part- or full-time during that year. Meanwhile, almost one-third of the county's three million full-time workers earned less than $25,000, which was well below what was needed to support a family.

And while the number of families in extreme poverty decreased from 13.4 percent in 2005 to 12.4 percent during 2006, there were still more than 250,000 families in the county living below the federal poverty line. Nearly two out of five residents didn't have enough income to even meet their basic needs and probably qualified for government anti-poverty programs.

"We saw some good news - medium household income is up in Los Angeles County from the previous year and family poverty has decreased also," Jessica Goodheart, author of "Poverty, Jobs and the Los Angeles Economy: An Analysis of U.S. Census Data and the Challenges Facing Our Region," told The Tidings. "But what the national and local data shows is people are working more, not earning more.

"The good news doesn't negate the fact that we have extremely high poverty levels this year," she stressed, "especially for certain groups like children, one out of five who are living in poverty, and the same for Latinos and African Americans. So we have more work to do to get people to where they need to be to afford the basic necessities such as housing and health care."

Across the nation last year, the number of people lacking health insurance jumped by 2.2 million, or about 5 percent. This was the biggest rise since 2002, adding up to 47 million uninsured Americans, including 600,000 more children.

In Los Angeles County during 2005, there were 2.1 million children and adults who had no health insurance during all or part of the year. Job-based health care has plummeted, while the number of the uninsured working poor has climbed in recent years. And some of the fastest-growing jobs are likely to lack health care. For instance, almost one-third of construction, leisure and hospitality workers have no insurance, either public or private.

"The system is broken and employers are not contributing their fair share," said Goodheart, who is LAANE's co-director of research. "It's essentially shifting the cost onto the state without us having any kind of state comprehensive public health insurance. So it's a mess right now. And people are having to make impossible choices between not getting treatment and losing their homes.

"At the same time, the Bush Administration is threatening not to increase the healthy family program here in California that covers low-income families. It's just wrong that we are not providing health insurance for everybody who lives in this county, and especially children. I don't know what else to say."

Lifting the floor
The poverty, jobs and local economy report concludes that a "multi-pronged" approach is needed, with all stakeholders playing a role. Businessmen must invest in their workforce, providing opportunities for workers to better themselves. Policymakers must focus on strategies that raise wages and benefits - especially health insurance - in traditionally low-wage jobs plus continue to promote the education of workers as a top priority. And labor unions must "rededicate" themselves to transforming service-sector jobs into career opportunities by raising standards through organizing workers.

Faith leaders also have a vital role to play, according to Goodheart. Because they speak with moral authority, these men and women have the power to reach diverse groups across the economic, social, ethnic and religious spectrum, including decision-makers.

"This is not simply a bad-news story," she said. "There are ways to 'lift the floor,' and we've seen it happen here in Los Angeles."

The researcher points out how wages were raised for 10,000 jobs in the city through the Los Angeles Living Wage Ordinance. She mentions the victorious labor fight of 65,000 grocery workers in Southern California who restored higher salaries and better benefits to more recently hired "second-tiered" employees.

And she talks about the ongoing struggle of hotel workers at LAX and the newer fight of port of Los Angeles and Long Beach truck drivers like Edgar Sanchez.

"Those classic manufacturing jobs that we think of as good jobs like in the auto industries were made into good jobs through the struggles of working people," she observed. "So we have a similar struggle on our hands to try to raise the quality of jobs in these newer industries that are growing in leisure and hospitality.

"People need to know that these jobs - hotel workers, truck drivers, retail workers, grocery workers and low-paying construction jobs - can also be transformed to good, safe jobs. We have an opportunity to move from a low-road to a high-road economy. It's just about making sure that everyone benefits."