Waging a Living

"Waging a Living" tells four inter-cut stories of strife and struggle from the streets of America, as it examines the many nuances of being part of the growing population of 'working poor'. Each story becomes more eye-opening than the last, as we get to intimately know the four people the film spotlights. Overall the film shows a faulty system rife with one catch-22 situation after another, where attempts to move away from poverty only prove to create a new type of poverty.

The DVD of "Waging a Living" contains a short film called "Rosevelt's America" that feels less like a companion piece and more like a missing storyline from the film, and does not have its own reference on IMDb. It was made by the same filmmakers as "Waging a Living", and it follows a good natured Liberian refugee who also struggles from paycheck to paycheck, but sees the U.S. system with an outsider's optimistic perspective, full of hope and promise. On the other hand "Waging a Living" offers a far gloomier picture, so in a matter of speaking if they are taken together a much broader scope of the situation is revealed.