Linda Tirado

Linda is author of the best-selling book ‘Hand to Mouth’, which dissects the reality of living in minimum wage America.

As well as contributing through interviews for Project Twist-It, Linda works on vox-pop content for the project.

Linda's unparalleled voice shines a brilliant spotlight on life in Bootstrap America and the reality of living in a society where low-wage workers battle each day just to get by.

Follow her on Twitter @killermartinis

“There’s no amount of work you can do to become not poor. Because they don’t pay poor people for the work that they do perform.

So, if I’m working a five-hour shift at restaurant a, and a five-hour shift at restaurant b – but I’ve got a three-hour commute in between and I’ve got an hour and a half commute there and an hour and a half commute home, that’s 15 hours… But I’m not getting paid for most of it and it’s that unpaid labour that’s the exhausting bit.

The problem isn’t that people are lazy, the problem is the wages aren’t high enough. The market is not, it turns out, a great setter of wages. ”

— Linda Tirado