Masters of Destiny: Working Multiple Jobs Is About More Than Money

Tiffany Toscano of Benton County, Minnesota, at her full-time job as a service adviser at a small, independent automotive repair shop. The single mother also works as a school janitor and has a small commercial and residential cleaning business. (Courtesy of Tiffany Toscano)

The American dream—that hard work is rewarded with a better life—is still alive. It beats in the hearts of the millions who juggle multiple jobs for multiple reasons. People like Tiffany Toscano of Benton County, Minnesota, 29, who has been working multiple jobs since 2016 when a suicide made her a single mother and she suddenly had to show more income to qualify for an apartment lease.

She is one of the 4.3 million Americans who worked a full and part-time job in September, according to Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED). The number of folks with multiple jobs has been increasing since April 2020, when COVID-19 shutdowns were implemented.

The number of people with two full-time jobs historically, according to FRED, peaked in August 2022, at 440,000 U.S. workers.

Toscano has three jobs: She is a full-time service adviser at a small automotive repair shop, a part-time school janitor, and she has a commercial and residential cleaning business.

“It takes lots of scheduling and planning, and then lots of flexibility and grace from everyone else in my life,” Toscano told The Epoch Times.

Building a Future

Around the time her daughter started preschool, Toscano says, she realized the pace was burning her out. It was hard to give her best to her daughter, she said, so she created boundaries.

“It’s important to know when to say no,” Toscano said. If someone approaches her for a house cleaning job that’s too big, she turns it down so she can manage her schedule. “The second part for me is, I started going to church, and God convinced me that I have to trust him to provide. He'll give me the opportunities. I have to be wise and discerning with what opportunities are for me.”

The extra work makes it possible to send her daughter to private school and skating lessons. It also helps her build a future.

“I’d like to buy a house,” Toscano said. “And the other thing I'd like to fund is six months of emergency savings.” Some weeks Toscano is stretching paycheck to paycheck; other weeks are better.

“Inflation is making it tough because my groceries are variable,” Toscano said. It would be easier if she could predict costs, but gas and groceries have become unpredictable. For now, if her daughter needs shoes, if Toscano rips her last pair of jeans, or if her car needs repair, the extra jobs help pay for these things.

Toscano expects she will always be busy, and multiple jobs will be part of her life for a long time. But she believes things will eventually be different.

“From a financial standpoint, I think there'll be a day and time where I won’t have to do [multiple jobs] at all,” she said. “I would like to have a normal 40–45-hour work week.”

Sense of Accomplishment

Will Nichols, 34, is a full-time livestock worker at the Department of Agriculture Livestock Evaluation Center in Rock Spring, Pennsylvania; works part-time mixing batches of livestock feed at Mill Hill Farm Supply in Williamsburg; and works on his family’s Angus beef farm. Some days start with feeding cattle on the farm at 6:30 a.m. and end at the mill at 11 p.m., where he mixes batches of corn, soybeans, barley, oats, vitamins, and minerals for hungry livestock.

Will Nichols during an evening of mixing livestock feeds at the 120-year-old Keystone Mill in Williamsburg, Pa., operated by Mill Hill Farm Supply, a small local independent feed and garden supply store, on Oct. 20, 2022. (Courtesy of Will Nichols)

Nichols managed the feed mill full-time before the opportunity at the Department of Agriculture came up. It is a state job with good benefits. But he feels a sense of obligation and mission at the mill.

“I didn’t want to leave them hanging. We have been on the search for someone to run that feed mill for a year,” Nichols told The Epoch Times. “Just like every other retailer that has a shingle in the window that says ‘We’re hiring,’ we have that. But you need to be able to hire someone who can manage the needs of a mill and who has that CDL. Someone who has that production agriculture background, but also that scientific agricultural background. You know, the person who has the skill set necessary to keep a 100-year-old, retrofitted feed mill in operation and in compliance with regulations. It’s been a challenge finding qualified help.”

There are no days off in agriculture. Livestock must be fed daily, so feed must be ready daily. Nichols stays with the mill because he is passionate about the importance of local, independent agriculture as part of a local, independent economy.

“A couple years ago, it dawned on me that Tractor Supply Company isn’t necessarily good for local economy, much in the same way as Dollar General and Walmart are not,” Nichols said. “They might fulfill a need, but ultimately, business and the profits go back to corporate centers that are not close to us. So, the money just gets sucked out of our communities and they’re locked in a downward spiral.”

“I believe strongly in what we do. It’s providing an important service to the farming community by being that independent processor that folks can rely on, that isn’t beholden to national corporate needs and interests.”

Having two paychecks is valuable, Nichols says, but it’s a challenge for work-life balance. Still, he finds satisfaction in using his time in this way.

“I love this. I don’t know that I necessarily love doing it at 11 o'clock at night, but there’s a tremendous sense of accomplishment in physical work that comes with doing this feed batch making. And the smell of the feed, and the action of bagging everything out, and working in a 100-year-old facility, I enjoy it,” Nichols said. “There really are a set of rewards. Much like I walk into the bank barn at home, built in the 1870s, and have a connection to those paths that help feed the world, I have that same connection at the mill.”

Human Interaction

Erin Cooper and her husband, Ryan Cooper, have four jobs between them. The Chester County, Pennsylvania, couple live in a two-bedroom apartment, and COVID-19 mitigation efforts had them both working from home.

Erin, 35, works in sales full-time and part-time at a children’s consignment shop. Her company has not returned her to an office. Ryan, 37, works for the state of Pennsylvania in information technology and works part-time at Home Depot.

She has tried working in different locations around the apartment but has settled on the kitchen table, where she stays eight hours a day.

“When I get done with work, I’m still kind of at work. It’s hard to shake the day off,” Erin Cooper told The Epoch Times.

“Being in sales, I am a people person. I thrive off relationships with people and daily conversation. I was having phone calls with customers, and I’m having a Zoom meeting. But there’s nothing quite like being around other humans. I really enjoy it.” She found herself working, making dinner, watching TV, and going to bed.

“There were some days I was just not leaving my house and it was causing some real depression for me. I was not okay.” She got the second job to get out of the house and have that human interaction she craved.

The couple planned to use money from the extra jobs to meet some future goals. It was nice to know they could quit the second jobs if they wanted to. But inflation is changing that.

“We went to the grocery store the other day and it’s awful. We feel like we have to work the second jobs if we want to eat or put gas in our car. Originally, we were going to work the second jobs—it'll be great for saving—but you know what? It’s going right to bills.”

Piecing Together Income

Danielle Lenar-Cummins of Warren County, New Jersey, would love to have a full-time job but she says it is tough to get a full-time position in higher education.

Lenar-Cummins, 39 and a mother of two, currently has four part-time jobs: three as an adjunct professor in communications at three different colleges, and one as a legal assistant for a law firm. She took the law job during the pandemic when she was furloughed from the schools.

“I applied for over 450 jobs through Indeed and I had one interview,” she told The Epoch Times. “They keep saying there’s people that are hiring and no one’s applying, and it’s like, ‘Hello, I have a master’s in communications’ … I guess they assumed if the pandemic got better, I would go back to teaching. To be frank, if someone was willing to give me a full-time job, I would have been like, ’Hey, I‘ll stick with you because you’re willing to take me,’ and that never happened.”

For the Kids

In a Facebook chat about working multiple jobs, participants offered snapshots about their situations, including both spouses working extra jobs, or one spouse working extra to afford the other staying home to raise and homeschool their children.

One woman works two jobs because she can bring her children to both, which cuts down on childcare costs. The income from both jobs funds private school. But her family’s energy costs are up $150 per month over last year, and some of the extra earnings now go to inflation.

“I work two jobs to pay my bills and keep my boys in the house they grew up. Divorce is hard enough without making them pick up and move,” another participant said. “With current inflation and gas prices, the money doesn’t go as far. And I’m watching stress on sons to fill their gas tanks to get to college or work … I think more of my stress comes from worrying about the future of this country for my children. I’m not liking what’s happening and fear things are going to get worse very soon.”

The common thread in their stories is the optimism that, despite the national economy, hard work pays off. But with inflation, the choice of working multiple jobs is becoming a necessity for some who are already giving their all.