The Cassandras, however, were right to warn about poverty in the midst of abundance. Personal-service providers — “servants,” as they once were called — tend to be poorly paid. There is little job security; the benefits are meager; the work is physically demanding and emotionally draining. It is not particularly surprising that women and immigrants have been more likely to take these jobs than native-born men. For many of the caretaking service jobs, less than 10 percent of the work force is male.

The wages of service work increasingly determine the welfare of the American working class and, to a substantial degree, the broader economy. But politicians have paid little attention. That’s partly because Americans continue to view service work as a way station, not a way of life. Teenagers get their first job at McDonald’s; mothers dip back into the work force as receptionists; seniors make a little extra money as Walmart greeters. The reality is that these are the kinds of jobs millions of Americans hold for their entire working lives. And increasingly, these are the jobs their children will perform, too.

—Binyamin Appelbaum

1. Ofelia Bersabe (Portrait Above)

Santa Clara, Calif. • The Home Health Aide

By Elise Craig

Two major events in Ofelia Bersabe’s life persuaded her to become a home health aide. In 2008, the Bay Area electronics company where she worked for 21 years as a sample-department supervisor let her go in a mass layoff. And that same year, her mother, whom she followed to the United States from the Philippines nearly two decades earlier, died. “When she passed away in my arms, I felt that I hadn’t given her the full attention I wanted to,” Bersabe said. “I promised myself that I would concentrate on taking care of women, especially seniors. In that way, I feel like I’m still taking care of her.”

Nine years later, at age 69, Bersabe is among nearly a million Americans who work as home health aides, a field that is expected to grow 38 percent by 2024, faster than most other occupations, thanks in large part to the aging baby-boom population. Already a senior herself, Bersabe works 65 hours a week caring for two elderly clients with dementia. She spends five 12- and 14-hour night shifts in her clients’ homes, providing companionship, reminders to take medicine and light housekeeping for one client, and everything from bathing and dressing to diaper changing for the other.

Having two jobs is partly a necessity and partly a hedge; should one of her clients die, she can still rely on income from the other. She also needs the money. Because she is a member of the Service Employees International Union Local 2015, the agencies that Bersabe works for pay her $16.13 and $11 an hour. California’s current minimum wage is $10.50, but the living wage for someone like Bersabe is $11.29.

Bersabe is grateful for the money and has no complaints about her wages, but she acknowledges that making a living in the Bay Area’s technology bubble is tough. She lost her house after the 2008 layoff, and she and her husband, who works nights as a security guard, now share a three-bedroom apartment rental behind Levi’s Stadium, where the 49ers play, with two other elderly couples.

The gratitude Bersabe’s clients show her — one kisses her when she arrives — is incredibly fulfilling, she said, but the work is hard. Dementia patients can be very unpredictable. “I have a very tame cat, and when they start to have sun-downing” — the late-afternoon confusion that can be a symptom of dementia — “I have a wild tiger,” she said. “But it’s not the person herself, it’s the sickness.” Once, when a client began to get agitated and yell at Bersabe, she sneaked around to the front door and rang the doorbell. The client welcomed Bersabe as an old friend that she hadn’t seen in a long time.