Michael Smith and Julius Giles couldn't be less alike. Smith is 63 with three children in college and a veteran of 25 years in the local television business; Giles is a 23-year-old Sacramento City College student and a single father of a 2-year-old daughter.
But on Tuesday afternoon, the two shared a table at a Sacramento McDonald's: unemployed, applications in hand, waiting for their names to be called.
"Forty years between us, and we're at the same table," Smith of Sacramento said.
A lot of people might as well have been at the same table.
Smith and Giles were among thousands who showed up at McDonald's outlets throughout Northern California and western Nevada trying to land one of 1,000 jobs the company was filling during a hiring day event. More than 100 applicants came to the K Street site alone.
It was a graphic example of the economic pain that has been visited upon the region the last two years.
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