One job during the day, another at night, American voters try to make ends meet

Funeral home employee and restaurant team leader: Zackree Kline, 21, works 60 hours a week to make ends meet, a situation that will push him to vote for Donald Trump over Kamala Harris in the 5 election november.

“I work every day of the week,” explains the young man, in a restaurant in York, a town of 45,000 inhabitants in Pennsylvania, one of the states where the election will be played.

It’s been like this “for about three and a half years”, he emphasizes. But “I love my two jobs”. Cap on his head, apron around his waist, unchanging smile on his face, he explains that “many people here have several jobs”.

He often doesn’t have time to sleep more than five hours a night. “It’s difficult,” but “that’s what it takes to get through it.”

Zack Kline blames the surge in inflation that the United States has experienced since 2021. But considers himself “lucky to have saved money before everything changed. So I was able to buy a house recently. I know that A lot of people my age don’t have that luxury, and pay exorbitant rents.”

He will vote for the former Republican president, who, in this county, won 61% of the votes, both in 2016 and in 2020: “many people remain favorable to Trump, simply because everything was much cheaper when he was president.

“Safety net”

In the United States, in August, 5.3% of workers held multiple jobs, according to figures from the Department of Labor. Or 8.5 million people.

After a brutal fall in spring 2020, with the Covid crisis, the level is now comparable to that of 2019.

Faced with inflation, “it is not surprising that to supplement household income, people are looking for a second job,” notes Mike Faulkender, professor at the University of Maryland, in an interview with AFP.

This former official at the Treasury Department under the Trump administration believes that, “generally speaking, if this is due to economic tensions, we can think that it does not bode well for the party that currently occupies the White House.”

“I don’t think there is one candidate who responds better than the other to my financial situation,” judges Brianna Smith, 30 years old.

A college math teacher by day, she works in a hypermarket in the evening, 40 hours a week on one side, 12 to 25 on the other.

“A lot of people are in my situation, working multiple jobs, or just trying to get by with one.”

Just be a math teacher? “It would be doable”, but this second salary offers her a “safety net”, to offer herself leisure activities among other things, because “I still have a social life, believe it or not”, she says .

“Of course, inflation pushed me to work more hours.”

Having become a full professor this year, Brianna Smith hopes, however, that she will soon be able to be content with just one job: “the students take a lot of my energy,” she laughs.

The thirty-year-old has a mother who “has always worked, worked, worked”. Her sisters also have several jobs.

“Lifestyle”

The fact that a part of the population has several jobs is not new, however, the rates were even “much higher” at the end of the 1990s, however, recalls Elise Gould, of the progressive think tank Economics Policy Institute.

Gary Jones, 58, says he has always had multiple jobs.

Five days a week, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., he maintains the premises of the York YMCA, with a gym, crèche, and housing for men in precarious situations.

“Hi, Gary,” we say to him as he passes enthusiastically through the corridors.

Then, until 9:30 or 10 p.m., he works in the warehouse of a large parcel delivery company.

“It brings in extra money” to cover the “cost of living,” underlines this gray-haired man, referring in particular to “the price of gasoline.”

“It has become part of my lifestyle,” assures this father of four now adult children.

He has seen the inflation of recent years pushing small businesses into bankruptcy: “family stores or restaurants no longer exist”.

He won’t say who he plans to vote for. But remains philosophical: “whether it is Kamala or Trump himself, (…) we pray that they make the right decision, do the right thing, not just for me, but for everyone” .