Barbara Ehrenreich, author of the New York Times best-seller Nickel and Dimed, recently visited a few of the families she profiled in her book to check in on how the recession was affecting their lives.

"In good times and grim ones, the misery at the bottom just keeps piling up, like a bad debt that will eventually come due."

The economic crisis hasn't changed the situation for many of the poor families Ehrenreich profiled because things were already pretty bad before the economy started tanking. They still face the same daily struggles of low wages, little job security, and limited safety nets like savings and family members to fall back on.

These families aren't coping with the economic crisis by canceling vacations and shopping at the Dollar Tree instead of Pier One Imports, for them the impacts of a poor economy are less obvious. Maybe this is why their story isn't often covered by ABC's the View and the local evening news.

Even after the recession ends and the economy begins to rebuild, many Americans will still be living paycheck to paycheck. The Wal-Mart clerk. Your corner grocery owner. Your office-building janitor. In her recent Op-Ed for the New York Times Ehrenreich again gives a voice to today's overlooked citizens.

A textile worker at the nonprofit Shrujan. Photo: Meanest Indian (flickr)

India's textile industry is contracting after several years of almost double digit growth, Forbes reports. About 35 million people are employed through India's textile industry. It is second only to agriculture in size and has become a symbol of a burgeoning middle class.

Many workers had been earning nearly $4 per day. This afforded families the opportunity to send their children to private schools, offering them a future beyond physical labor. The economic crisis has changed these positive trends, however. Wages have dropped by half or more, sending millions of workers below the poverty line. As a consequence, families have been forced to stop paying for important services like medical care and have even been forced to pull their children out of schools.

In an interview with Forbes, Ajay Chhibber, assistant secretary general of the U.N. Development Program in New York, explains the long-term ramifications.

This will affect a generation. A girl who drops out of school will be an illiterate mother the rest of her life... You had a financial crisis. It's now become an economic crisis. The next phase of this in 2009 will be a social crisis.

A staggering 82 percent of workers in sub-Saharan Africa are classified as "working poor" — those who are working but are still in poverty. The International Labor Organization expects that percentage to grow, sobering news to a region that has experienced it's best economic growth in more than four decades.

The ILO numbers indicate, however, that GDP growth is on the decline and many on the subcontinent are becoming discouraged in looking for work. The high percentage of youth workers in the region is making matters worse, the UN news agency reports:

The region has the world’s youngest working population and 75 percent of available jobs there are considered “vulnerable,” according to ILO. The agency estimated that one-third of job-seeking youths have simply given up or are working in jobs that pay less than $2 a day.

Small farmers who are being hurt by the drop in grain prices are a prime example of vulnerable workers. Many of these small farmer's have poured a large percentage of their resources into one venture and could be financially ruined if their investments sour. Family businesses often "employ" family member that work for no pay. These workers are also considered vulnerable and are still counted as being employed even though they don't actually earn wages, skewing the region's unemployment figures.

If the ILO’s predictions come true, 19 to 26 million people, many in these vulnerable positions, will join the ranks of the working poor, adding to the throngs of people struggling to meet the most basic of day-to-day needs.