Reuters:
Poverty in the United States is spreading from rural and inner-city areas to the suburbs, according a study, a situation that can worsen as the economy confronts what may be a protracted recession.
The study by the Federal Reserve's Community Affairs department and the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program found that poverty levels in the world's richest nation were on the rise.
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Those of us who will get through this crisis understand what the rest of the country ignores. If ya don't have it to spend, you don't do it. Period. Ya save that money to pay bills, buy food, heat, gas for the car, clothes if your kids need em, education if you can swing it. You do as the peasants do in europe, you get creative in the kitchen and discover new ways to use leftovers, create new meals, instead of eating out. You learn to buy things at pawn shops, second hand stores the rich reject with the tags still on. No, its not fancy, but it gets you through, and you become someone with priorities intact, not bought by ads, or media. The best meals I have served company came from basics, served on dishes bought at second hand stores. Nobody cares. My expensive cookware came from second hand stores. If you ask yourself what is important, you discover its not what's on a label, its how you use what you have. Its Peasant thought 101, buts really just common sense.
The peasants in Europe?? Where?
The best article I have read that explains this mess is by Michael Lewis at Portfolio.com called ' The End of Wall Street. ' You must read it. This is so much more than the sub prime defaults in a Riverside, Ca or a Detroit....this is trillions in derivative and credit default swap con game that is absorbing all those billions of bailout money. Probably going to China to keep them happy after they bought all the worthless paper. Main street will not see any of it. I think my life would go on without an AIG .....how is giving AIG hundreds of billions helping the US economy ? Yet they won't give anything to the Big Three.. makes you wonder. Read the article then see if these Wall Street investment banks should be getting anything at all. Let them fail.
Let's get one thing straight, poverty hits all brackets of society. Its not just for the poor, black, lazy, it can happen to ANYONE. Nobody is immune. YES virginia, the burbs are getting hit with this crisis and yes, its a reality. I see more people shopping at the Aldi stores than I ever have, a sign of the times. I see people shopping at Good Will and Salvation Army stores than Nordstroms. WHY? HELLO, its called middle class wasn't expecting to be hit in the stomach with what the rest of us were dealing and struggling with for years. Its a reality check. I said this way back, if the boat sinks we all sink together, and there is no first class. Nobody paid attention. They said I was just ranting. No, I was telling the truth and harsh realities can be a bitter pill to swallow, but unless you pay attention, stop taking everything for granted, this is what happens. Black Friday isn't going to save this problem. Its there, will still be there after the holidays, and maybe worse for those who chose greed over common sense. If ya don't have it to spend, ya don't do it. People can live without store bought crap. People need to be saving their money, not spending it on things they cannot afford. DUH. Cut up the plastic people, ya don't have cash, don't spend what you don't have.
I've met a few former middle class people who find themselves among us working poor. They are understandably disoriented and confused. They complain about everything. They still think they are in charge. Worst of all, there is no work for them. In America today you need experience being poor.
When we do not make anything and the only industries are the banksters, that is what happens.
a-hah. Dont'cha know it.
When problems happen in poor communities people pay no attention to "those" people. Teen pregnancy has been rife in middle class white communities for years but adoption and abortion hid those family secrets. Now that more white teenagers are getting pregnant and not having abortions or giving their babies up for adoption, all of a sudden it's a problem. Remember the school in Maine where there were so many white teens? Schools with white middle schoolers having sex on school buses.
Crack addiction has destroyed many families and they've begged for help. However, when middle class house wives become presciption addicts all of a sudden addiction is recognized. An addict is an addict to me.
Many people with no skills have searched for jobs to no avail but now that thousands of people are out of work, now its being recognized.
What goes on in someone else's back yard will eventually reach yours. Care about "those" problems too.
gee, ya think if millions are losing their jobs, savings and homes that maybe that's poverty .
Uh, the mortgage and credit crises by definition, would be "hitting the suburbs," right?
More of the Bush legacy: Number of Americans on food stamps poised to set record.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/11/25/20081125food-stamps1125-ON.html
What a guy! Thanks to the Bush Crime Family.
i think that is good news. Everyone should feel the effects of this sorry situation. Then maybe there will be no need for beddazled cellphones for dogs or diamond studded blenders for 'housewives'.
I'll be damned if my dog has to give up his cellphone.
And they're gonna have to pry my diamond studded blender out of my cold, dead hands.
lol
During the Depression, people stood in soup lines. During today's economic downturn, they stand in line to shop. Restaurants are full, parking lots are full..... I think we need to stop listening to the media blather on about how tough the times are and judge for ourselves.
Wait until you lose your job:(
Thank goodness at least in your part of the country things are going well !! You may not see the "soup lines" of years ago and the main reason is that we now have a Federal Food Stamp program that alleviates the impact poverty has on http://www.frac.org/html/federal_food_programs/programs/fsp_faq.htmlaq.html
You're right about one thing though; it's hard to judge how hard things are for the poorest among us if we can't "SEE" it. I mean, the poor among us don't wear tattered clothing, don't have the look of the skinny, Jewish prisoners in the Nazi camps of WW2, and usually aren't standing in some street corner begging for food, but they're still among us, all those 12-16% of this nation's poor. That's some 30-35 million people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States
But I suppose you could be right, if you're seeing Malls and shopping centers full of shoppers, Restaurants that are full, then I guess times aren't bad after all.
I see a lot more hungry people in nyc...i see people with pantry insufficiency come into Whole Foods for the fre snacks and goodies...I swa one guy scraping up the seeds from the bottom of the bagel bins while pretending to shop.....and eat them .He had nothing in his cart and he frankly looked hungry.
What struck me is that the poor now are not whom you would expect. and I see countless of people dumspter diving for food...the otehr day an elderly white couple was rummaging through trash for food.
Personally its heartbreaking; I try to buy people food whenever I can.
Dumpster diving. So much perfectly good food is thrown away every day. Kudos to businesses that donate their unusable excess to soup kitchens.
I see people standing in soup lines. All the time.
Left Out of the Bailout: The Poor
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1861843,00.html?imw=Y
An estimated 36.5 million Americans currently live below the poverty line, but those numbers will probably increase by as many as 10.3 million if current projections for the depth and duration of the recession hold true. According to the center's analysis, the number of poor children will grow by as many as 3.3 million. And the number of children in deep poverty, those in families living on less than half the wages of the official poverty line, will climb by as many as 2 million.
Here's that link again: Left Out of the Bailout: The Poor
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1861843,00.html?imw=Y
Is that surprising? Let's be honest here. People who move to the suburbs can not afford to live in the city. They move because trey are trying to keep up a lifestyle that is out of their reach close to the centers of our cities. But since the economic pressure that led to their move in the first place does not stop just because they live somewhere else now, they continue sliding down further. And an honest analysis of their finances would have revealed that the move was a total loser proposal to begin with. Higher gas prices, longer commutes and diminished opportunities and quality of life are not offset at all by lower real estate prices.
I was born in New Hope, PA, 'burb of Philadelphia. My parents still live there, stone house on a an imposing ground. My 2 youngest brothers still live with them when they are off campus. My 3 older brothers and I are no longer living with my parents. They threw us out, literally, after graduation, even me, their only daughter. I am doing well, still, no way I could afford even a garage-like-habitation in New Hope. Property values are ridiculous.
I now live in West Chester, PA my dream home on an acre lot, a DILAPIDATED HUGE STONE HOUSE, that am doing rehab, close to the Delaware border. I love it. Close to work, fresh air, no serious crime in my neighborhood - last one being when Dupont killed his friend, 15 years ago ? After a stress work day, I hurry back to that dilapidated stone of a home, and I am at peace. I can ran or jog on a pastoral settings. There are malls, theaters and small Amish farms to balance the landscape. My Dad and my brothers helped with the home improvements and landscaping. It's a challenge, but one I love. I would have love to live in New Hope, or to Rumson, NJ where grannies live. But that too, is way way beyond my means.
Living within my means - more often than not, on a very tight budget, but a challenge that sparks my energies and imaginations. 'burbs my kind of life.
This comment is only accurate depending upon the locale. I live in the mid-west this area especially the center cities were devastated by the Regan/ Bush I/ and Bush II public policies.
People moved to the suburbs chasing the image of financial success, leaving the center cities to be supported and maintained by the poor and the elderly.
Now, thanks to the last 8 years of Bush II public policy (ie the sub-prime mortgage disaster) cities look like war zones. And now that all of the "good jobs" have been out-sourced to China, India, and Mexico, the suburbs, are now feeling the effects of the republican double-cross or should I say sell-out. This is one of the reasons among many others that the republic brand will not be sellable for a loong time.
Gentrification in the city (like New York) has pushed people out to the suburbs.
This is a wake up call to people living beyonds their means. The bottom line is, there is no one out there who is going to save your sorry materialistic a--! The moral of this financial meltdown, is to stop shopping and start saving.
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First Posted: 11-28-08 03:29 PM | Updated: 12-29-08 05:12 AM