My wife graduated from college with a BS in MicroBiology. Got a job within her field doing product testing at P&G. Worked there for 6 years, never earned more than $12.50 per hour and hated her job. After she had our first child, she quit P&G; taking a part time job about a year later as a cashier at WalMart. She worked there for 4 years, loved that job making $7.75. She was offered health care coverage, even though she was only part time, as well as other less common perks such as a great employee discount on damn near everything, and a legal assistance benefit. The discount was so good, the company had to safeguard who all got the discount cards, mine had a photo id on it so that no one else could use it. My wife was not eligible for health care coverage at P&G because I already had a family coverage plan, and they never offerered legal assistance.
BTW, if you have ever heard the statistic that many unions put out about how a part-time employee at Wal-mart is so much more likely to be collecting welfare or some other government aid while working than, say, Target. (often referred to as the 'working poor') The legal assistance benefit is the reason why; because in many states (particularly California) a single mother is eligible for a great deal of government aid at a much higher annual salary than, say, your unemployed white male under 40. The legal aid department was very good at identifying aid programs for which these part-time single mom's qualfied for. It's not that the part-time single mom's who worked at Target didn't qualfiy, they just didn't know to apply. My wife never qualfied for any of that crap because she was married, I was working full time, and she's white; but she did know a few cashiers who were able to get something along those lines even in Kentucky due to the help of legal aid. My wife wouldn't have wanted a handout anyway, but learning about that perk and how it's commonly used greatly affected my perspectives regarding Walmart and the trustworthyness of the propaganda that spewed forth from my union. That revelation might have been the turning point for me; as I was once a Democrat so blue that I was a county delegate to the Demcratic Party's state convention.
Hell, as a still younger man, I was a card carrying
Green!
If you are not a communist at 20, then you have no heart; if you are still a communist at 40 then you have no sense.