Bill O’Reilly “doesn’t have a clue,” says the mom with 4 jobs

In Tuesday’s Democratic presidential debate, Beto O’Rourke recounted meeting a woman he said is “working four jobs” while raising a child with disabilities, highlighting her struggle as an example of rising U.S. income inequality. 

But a firestorm ensued when former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly responded with a skeptical tweet: “Beto says he met a woman working FOUR jobs. And raising a special needs child. I don’t believe him. Sorry.” 

In response, O’Rourke shot back a photo of himself with the woman, whom he identified as Gina, and her daughter, Summer. 

In fact, Gina Giambone doesn’t work four jobs — she works five, she told CBS MoneyWatch on Wednesday. She also sleeps in her car because she can’t afford to pay rent in Las Vegas, Giambone said. Because none of her jobs are full time, she cobbles together work between “gig economy” work as well as service jobs including cleaning homes. 

O’Reilly doesn’t “have a clue about what life is,” she said. “It’s reality. I see it every day that people can’t make ends meet.”

Giambone, 59, said she earns money as a home health aide to her daughter, for which she’s paid for about an hour of work each day, and by working delivery jobs for three companies — DoorDash, Uber Eats and Postmates. She supplements her income by cleaning a friend’s house. 

In all, she estimates she makes about $300 a week, the equivalent of $15,600 a year. “I worked for three billion-dollar businesses,” Giambone said, fully aware of the irony. 

Giambone is looking for a full-time job, but suspects employers are put off by her age. In the meantime, working delivery jobs allows her to keep her daughter, Summer, in the car with her. “She has the mind of child,” she said. “She needs protection and she needs me with her.”

Giambone, who said she’s actually a long-term Bernie Sanders supporter, said she met O’Rourke at an event where he was speaking. She went because she was curious about his views, and liked how he connected with her daughter. 

“He’s removed from reality”

Other families with children with special needs also told CBS MoneyWatch they work multiple jobs to keep up with medical bills. In some cases, that offers the flexibility they require to attend to their children’s health care needs. 

O’Reilly “is removed from reality,” said Sheletta Brundidge, a mother of four, three of whom have autism, in Cottage Grove, Minnesota. “What does he think, we have money trees in our backyard?”

Brundidge said she had a full-time job at a television station in Houston, but when one of her children was first diagnosed with autism, she and her husband had to reassess. She asked her employer for a part-time job because she needed more flexibility, but they didn’t have one. Now, she works four part-time jobs.

Sheletta Brundidge works four full-time jobs while parenting four children, three of whom have autism. The Brundidge family

“I didn’t start out working four part-time jobs,” she said. “I started with one, then I had to pick up another one.”

Brundige works as a part-time producer at a radio station, writing for a local newspaper, blogging and hosting a podcast called “Two Haute Mamas.” She said she works at night and on the weekends because it gives her the flexibility to take her kids to medical appointments and to deal with health insurance companies. 

O’Reilly’s comments struck her as “unbelievable,” she said. “He doesn’t know anything about our struggle,” she said, adding that he should spend the day with her family to understand the stresses on families with special-needs children.

Medical costs

Among the most pressing of those issues — high medical costs. 

One woman with a special-needs child, who asked to remain anonymous so as not to anger one of her family’s employers, told CBS MoneyWatch that she and her husband struggle despite their six-figure income. Although her husband is a physician with health insurance, he works three side jobs in addition to his full-time job in order to make money to cover their daughter’s health care costs, she said.

Many medical costs for special-needs children aren’t covered by health insurance, parents said. Brundige noted that her family has spent thousands on special equipment to make the house safe for their children, such as a $1,900 door with multiple locks so their youngest child won’t run out of the house.

But the parents hope O’Reilly’s tweet brings attention to the both the financial and emotional challenges of parenting special-needs children. Said Brundidge: “The struggle of parents with a special needs children is real and it’s important and it’s something we need to talk about in these debates.”