Annalyse Gosselin would like a new coat. Hers is ripped, and its zipper doesn’t work anymore.
She’d also like a new phone and to eat at a restaurant one of these days— the last time she dined out was in May, on her 20th birthday—but can’t afford those things either. Gosselin works two jobs, at a grocery store and part-time as a nursing assistant, but she says that nets her less than $20,000 a year. That isn’t nearly enough to thrive where she lives in Boston, where the median one-bedroom apartment rents for about $3,000 a month.