No "American Dream" for hard working people in US - heartbreaking stories

Huffington Post has posted an article crashing the notion of the "American Dream." Journalists have interviewed hundreds of people who have earned master's degree, went to college, who work various jobs and still are below the poverty line. How did that happen that the US has turned from the country where everyone came to achieve a dream into a country where despite all the efforts, people can still barely feed their families and cannot live normally struggling financially, not being able to afford simple things? According to 2012 Census data, more than 7 percent of American workers are below the federal poverty line. Those people make less than $11,170 for a single person and $15,130 for a couple. Some jobs in the US still pay less $10 an hour. In Huffington Post article, the struggling working class people share their stories about the devastating life of day-to-day hardships. The range of people being interviewed is very diverse, from single parents, couples with and without children to young women with graduate degrees and business owners. They nevertheless have one thing in common: their financial situation is far from stable; they work and earn just enough to provide very minimum for themselves and their loved ones. In between the jobs they are looking for additional jobs to help them survive. For instance, there is a story about Deangelo Belk, a 21-year-old Wendy's employee making $7.50 an hour. He works for 10 hours per week trying to move out of his mother’s house. He asks his boss to let him work more but he always denies claiming that he is lucky enough to have a job. Another story tells about Vanessa Powell, 29, who has master's degree in business administration and who works full time in a Goodwill warehouse in Seattle for $9.25 an hour. She feels grateful to have a job since her fiancé has just lost one. Even with the job, however, it's sometimes hard for them to get enough to eat. "I mean, yeah, it's dirty work and often demeaning work, but at least it's work," she said. "Even though [my fiancé] only worked part time, it was still something. I make enough to cover rent and electric, but we share a cell phone, which is why it's kind of hard for both of us to search for jobs." There is also Janet Weatherly, who has a doctoral degree but who fails to find a job in her field. So she has to work as a sales associate making $11 an hour. It also takes her 45 minutes to drive to her work every day, making her pay too much for gas. Alicia Payton is a mother of two; she has been working hard and has recently received a job promotion. It seems like her story is so much better than the previous ones. However, she got into a car accident recently, her vehicle was damaged for $4,000. Since Payton couldn't afford to fix her vehicle and couldn't get to job, she was fired. "I've worked so hard to get where I'm at, and one simple thing and I'm afraid I'm going to lose everything," she said. There are many stories like these, all of them different and similar at the same time. It shows the desperate situation of many honest hardworking, trying-very-hard people, people who live in the country that was recently associated with "American Dream," with a myth that no longer exists