No, they're arguing that using a single anecdote which may not be representative. Coupled with the placement of that in the title of th article, it's a framing anecdote that's used to shock the reader into thinking the problem is more dire than it is (the situation is bad, but I claim that few academics are becoming sex workers to remain as academics).
It's reasonable to ask why the title is plural - "academics turn to sex work" - while the anecdote in the article is about a single person turning to sex work, and then there is no other information about how common this is.
The closest it gets to statistics is:
Sex work is one of the more unusual ways that adjuncts have avoided living in poverty, and perhaps even homelessness. A quarter of part-time college academics (many of whom are adjuncts, though itβs not uncommon for adjuncts to work 40 hours a week or more) are said to be enrolled in public assistance programs such as Medicaid.
Which says literally nothing about how common it is for adjuncts to turn to sex work.
On the other hand, I would argue that it is unreasonable (or at least intellectually dishonest) for you to ask: Are you arguing life for adjuncts is improving?. Obviously the OP is not arguing that. Your intent with this question is to shame the OP for asking clarifying questions that might weaken the articles case. If you were intellectually honest, you would be in favor of accurate information.
I think it's safe to say that there is probably more than one adjunct who is doing sex work (somewhat based on my experience of having read this type of story before in the past years). But I agree that the headline and framing of this story deserves scrutiny. I don't think it's coincidence the way that the first sentence in your excerpt ("Sex work is one...") is immediately followed by a sentence that alludes to a statistic ("A quarter of part-time college academics") that ends up being unrelated. The close juxtaposition of the sentences could easily be misinterpreted as "25% of adjuncts are doing sex work").
