Jeans Plant Gives Hourly Workers a Safety Net

By Elaine Korry

Published November 28, 2004 at 11:00 PM CST

A worker in the Canton, Miss., Levi's plant processes a stack of jeans.

One in four U.S. jobs now qualifies as low income, according to the Census Bureau. Millions of working families are barely scraping by. Most have little or no savings, and a sudden financial emergency can push them over the edge into poverty.

As part of our series on low-wage workers, NPR's Elaine Korry reports on the efforts of one company -- Levi-Strauss and Co. -- to help workers get out of a sudden crisis -- and keep them from getting into a jam in the future.

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Elaine Korry

Elaine Korry is an NPR contributor based in San Francisco. From August 2004-June 2007 she worked as an NPR senior reporter covering social policy for NPR, with a focus on education, and on the lives of the nation's most vulnerable citizens — the homeless, those living in poverty, working in low wage positions, and trying to find their way to a more stable life.

See stories by Elaine Korry