Local Working Poor Feel Invisible

A lot of people would do just about anything for a job right now, but a growing number of people are working for less, struggling to keep out of poverty and feeling ignored by government assistance.

In a recent report from the Working Poor Families Project shows an increasing number of jobs in the country are paying so little, those employees are considered to be living in poverty.

The government is stepping in to help the soaring number of unemployed, but some of the working poor say they feel invisible.

The bills are piling up for Laurie Terrall. She says this economic crisis, is nothing new for her.

"When I have bills that I  can't pay, I actually start shaking," she says. "I actually have an anxiety attack trying to look at my paper work and figure out what I can pay."

She graduated from college, got a masters degree and she beat cancer. Obviously she's not a loser but her job doesn't pay enough and now she's drowning in debt.

"You lose your joy, you lose your joy," she says with tears welling in her eyes. "You feel like you have a concrete block around your chest and its dragging you down to the bottom and you keep trying to swim up and it keeps dragging you down and no matter what you do it's always dragging you down."

This mother of two says she couldn't even find the money for a bus trip to meet her youngest son returning home from war.

And she can't keep up with the pile of bills stacking up on her kitchen table..

"I don't have a savings account that I'm not dipping into. I don't have retirement money. I don't have an IRA. I don't have the money, it's not there," she says.

A story becoming all to familiar for millions across the country.

"I don't need a lot of money," she says. "What I mind is that I work as hard as I can and I can't make it."

Terrall is part of a growing number of America's working poor. People with a job, but aren't earning enough to pay off piles of school debt, medical bills and mortgage payments.

The report is based off of U.S Census Data.

It shows from 2002 to 2006 the number of low-income families rose to nearly 9.6 million, or 28 percent of the country.

That was before the recession.