The following article by Todd C. Frankel was posted on the Washington Post website August 17, 2018:
AMES, Iowa — Isabel Moctezuma was cooking again. Now, at least, she was doing it at home, making salmon for dinner in her small apartment. Her daughter, Mia, 8, sliced carrots next to her. Moctezuma was just off the clock and still wearing her Texas Roadhouse work shirt, which on the back read, “I (heart) my job.” The slogan made her laugh.
Moctezuma, 39, worked this summer in the restaurant’s kitchen for $11.50 an hour — less than what she had made as a cook six years ago. The rest of the year she worked as a cook at Iowa State University, where the pay was a little better. But she had seen the “Help Wanted” signs all over town. She’d heard how the local economy was soaring. And she’d recently applied for a supervisor’s job. She wondered if this was her chance. It was only later, when dinner was over and with the dishes done and Mia watching TV, that she allowed herself to imagine what that might feel like.
“It would be nice to not have to worry so much,” she said.
