Last winter, executives from the snack-food empire Frito-Lay invited Ronen Zohar, the Israeli head of America's biggest hummus company, to watch the Super Bowl from a luxury suite at the Superdome in New Orleans.

For the snack-food industry, the Super Bowl amounts to something like Christmas and every kid's...

Last winter, executives from the snack-food empire Frito-Lay invited Ronen Zohar, the Israeli head of America's biggest hummus company, to watch the Super Bowl from a luxury suite at the Superdome in New Orleans.

For the snack-food industry, the Super Bowl amounts to something like Christmas and every kid's...

Earlier this year, Janet Sparks was called in to meet her bosses at the Walmart in Baker, La., where she works as a non-salaried supervisor in the customer service department.

Sparks, 53, had approached the managers earlier to complain about the treatment of some of her co-workers. Now, her...

Walmart wages are so low that many of its workers rely on food stamps and other government aid programs to fulfill their basic needs, a reality that could cost taxpayers as much as $900,000 at just one Walmart Supercenter in Wisconsin, according to a study released by Congressional...

As fast-food workers in Seattle walked out of their restaurants on Wednesday night and Thursday, joining the hundreds of other low-wage workers who have gone on strike this spring, organizers claimed that the recent wave of walkouts has already yielded tangible results.

Conditions, hours, positions and...

As Walmart workers this week resume strikes at stores around the nation, organizers are saying that more employees than ever have joined the ranks of the activists, with some experts going so far as to say that the movement has achieved critical mass.

According to OUR Walmart, the...

MOORE, Okla. -- A few years after Kristi Lewis started her barbershop in this suburb of Oklahoma City, she went to a used-equipment store outside of town and bought a 1963 Belmont Electric barber chair in the crimson-and-cream color scheme of the Oklahoma Sooners.

It was the pride of her...

MOORE, Okla. -- Minutes before the tornado hit, Scott Lewis raced to his son’s elementary school in this suburb south of Oklahoma City. His son’s third-grade classmates were lined up against both sides of a hallway, covering their heads with their hands.

Some were crying as teachers tried to...

MOORE, Okla. -- Around 10 a.m. Wednesday, two days after the tornado, Darius Joseph and his friend Brandon Dick set out for the disaster zone that used to be their neighborhood to see what they could salvage from the rubble.

Their eyes searched for contours of geography they could...

Poverty is soaring in the suburbs.

According to a new book from the Brookings Institution, the suburban poverty rate in America has climbed by 64 percent over the past decade, more than twice as fast as the poverty rate in urban areas.

Nearly 16.5 million people...

Vicente de Jesus Garcia says he had a bad feeling when he arrived at a Harlem housing project three years ago to deliver a pizza. He didn't like the looks of the place, so he told the customers to meet him outside. As he waited, a group of men pulled...

Fast-food and retail workers walked off the job in Milwaukee, Wis., on Wednesday, prompting labor organizers to speak of "spreading unrest" in the service industry.

The strike followed similar one-day walkouts over the last two months in Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, and New York, as well...

As Mother’s Day approached, Charlene Fletcher, mother of two, found herself occupied with the needs of other families, attending to the crush of shoppers last week at the Walmart in Duarte, Calif., where she works.

On Mother’s Day itself, she would be in the store, making sure shoppers had one...

A few hours before the cops clapped handcuffs on him, James Cannon, a student at the University of Minnesota, was feeling better than ever about his prospects for the future: He'd just handed in his last college paper and was looking forward to a well-paying career in the medical field.

The Kentucky Fried Chicken where Joseph Barrera works stands at a busy intersection in the working-class Brooklyn neighborhood where he grew up, down the street from some auto body shops, a few rice-and-beans joints and a White Castle. Until the day Barrera found himself mopping up the grease that had...

NEW YORK -- At an outdoor basketball court in Greenwich Village this week, Peyton Bell, 66, was talking about Jason Collins.

"I support him," he said emphatically. "It's good for a male to come out."

Bell, who played basketball in high school and college, and now mostly comes...

CHICAGO -- When Chris Thomas, 25, started working at the Nike store in downtown Chicago in 2008, he made $10.15 an hour -- at least a few dollars short of what he'd need to move out of his parents' house in Oak Park, Ill.

Over the next two years, his...

Labor groups are predicting that hundreds of Chicago-area fast-food and retail workers will walk off the job for a one-day strike on Wednesday, just weeks after similar strikes hit New York City.

The would-be striking workers are affiliated with the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago, which has...

A week after hundreds of fast-food workers went on strike in New York City, organizers and workers say enthusiasm has grown for their efforts, despite some experts' doubts that the drive will lead to the goal of a $15 minimum hourly wage.

At a Domino's on Manhattan's Upper...

For three years after chronic back pain finally caused her to leave her job waiting tables, Julia Juan says she tried to find work that her body could handle. At one point, she spent $30,000 on a food truck thinking that she could manage a job that didn't require her...