The future of work is the low-wage health care job. The poor taking care of the poor are driving the new economy. By Soo Oh

In 2010, Tony Rowe was at a dead-end job pumping gas at a station in Oregon. The former mechanic had once worked on tanks and freight liners in the Army and diesel trucks in civilian life, but he had trouble returning to work in a battered economy after undergoing treatment for alcoholism through the VA.

Then his girlfriend suggested he apply for work with an agency supporting people with disabilities in their homes. The job started under $10 an hour, and he wasn’t sure what he was getting into. But Rowe liked how every day was a little different with the young people — mostly in their late teens and early 20s — he helped support.

“It’s not the same old, same old all the time,” he said. “I found out a lot about myself doing this, so that kinda makes me want to be a better person.”...