Front-Line Food Workers Agonize: Risk Illness on Job or Go Broke

  • Poorly paid yet essential food workers at risk of coronavirus
  • As U.S. peak harvest nears, outbreaks seen among farmworkers
Workers harvest coffee on a farm in Carmo do Paranaiba, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
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For weeks, Gloria Carrera wrestled with a question millions of food workers face: Should she go to work and risk getting infected, or stay home and risk going broke?

“Both decisions feel the same -- and feel hard,” said the 43-year-old tomato picker in Florida. In the end, she decided she needs the paycheck too much to sit out the pandemic.