Paula Newbaker, 64, knew she might need to take a pay cut when she left her long career in public relations in Washington D.C. to care for her 91 year-old mother with dementia outside of Pittsburgh. But she didn't expect it to be so dramatic.
“There aren’t a hell of a lot of PR jobs in Pittsburgh,” she explains. This was 2017, well before the COVID remote-work boom. Newbaker found the jobs she applied for usually went to locals who knew the area well. The only work she was able to secure was part-time, temporary, or freelance, which paid around $15 an hour.
