South L.A.'s Low-Wage Workers: The Bodega Cashier
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This story is part of a Neon Tommy series exploring the lives of low-wage workers in South Los Angeles. In his State of the Union address this February, President Obama unveiled a plan for the minimum wage to be raised to $9 an hour from its current level at $7.25. 
Marie Carrenza makes less than minimum wage helping people send remittances back to their home countries. "I think it's a good job," she said. (Michelle Toh)
The issue of minimum wage became one of renewed pivotal importance in the final weeks of the L.A. mayoral election, with candidate Wendy Greuel pledging to support an increase in the wages of hotel workers to $15 an hour. Workers featured in this series earn wages below, at, or slightly above the California minimum wage rate, which currently stands at $8 an hour. These are the workers who would be affected by a new policy.
For the past eight years, Marie Carrenza has worked as the manager of Chez Cashing Place, a remittance agency that allows foreign workers to send money home to Mexico. The business, which doesn’t appear as much more than a service counter located in a corner grocery store on South Union Ave. and W. 23rd St., is her first and only employer since moving from Mexico to California at the age of 21. “[I wanted to] know other countries,” she said.
After arriving in the States, Carrenza lived with her family until saving enough money to forge her own path. She said she noticed a help needed sign in the window of the store one day and was soon after hired to train other employees to cash checks, a task she said she was familiar with from similar work back home.
Carrenza, now 29, spent the majority of her twenties working at this job, where she works from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day supervising one other cashier. She said she earns $900 per month, making her hourly rate around $5. The majority of her income goes toward splitting the $1200 monthly rent on a one-bedroom apartment in Santa Monica, which Carrenza shares with a roommate.
Throughout the week, she drives to work in different branches of the remittance agency, located in Culver City, Santa Monica, and downtown Los Angeles. “Downtown is very different, because [there are] many homeless people,” she said.
Currently, Carrenza has no plans to change jobs. “I think it’s a good job,” she said.
For more stories from this series, click here.
Reach Assistant News Editor Michelle Toh here.
