4 Desperate Ways the Hardest Hit Are Coping with Economic Crisis

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.alternet.org/story/152099/4_desperate_ways_the_hardest_hit_are_coping_with_economic_crisis/


As the economy continues to tank in the wake of congressional budget showdowns and stock market crashes, stories of those hardest hit remain hidden from view. The unemployed and underemployed, the homeless and the hungry have all been relegated to the back pages of our local newspapers; that is, if they are reported on at all.

As America's economic disaster continues its destructive rampage throughout our communities, leaving behind record levels of unemployment, home foreclosures, mounting debt and unaffordable bills, how are those on the edge of the economy coping?

1) Skipping Meals: Not Just for Adults Anymore

According to figures released by the USDA in 2009, 17.4 million American households (14.7 percent) are "food insecure,” which is the highest recorded rate since surveys were first conducted in 1995. As a result, 97 percent of adults in these households report cutting back or skipping meals to ensure there is enough for their kids to eat. Twenty-eight percent have even given up eating for an entire day.

More at the link --

[nashville_brook]

1. 4) Suicide Amidst Financial Hopelessness and Desperation

[closeupready]

2. This reminds me, I want to find a food pantry nearby so

I can donate some canned foods. K&R

[Curmudgeoness]

3. Great idea. I always donate money, since they buy in bulk

and can do so much more with the dollars that I give. I pay retail at a grocery store for canned goods, they get discounted food. If you spend $10 to buy the food, that $10 could get them $20-$40 in food. Although I do not begrudge the grocer making a profit, for this cause I prefer it all go to the food pantry.

[Pooka Fey]

15. + 1000

[coalition_unwilling]

4. Meanwhile, yesterday, Bloomberg reported that the Fed had

made $1.2 trillion in secret loans to the globe's largest financial institutions during the financial crisis of 2007-08.

Juxtapose that Fed strategem to bail out the parasites against point #4 in this article and the utter moral depravity of American and global capitalism should not fail to escape you.

And there are some who continue to applauded the Fed's actions, as though saving capitalism and the parasites is somehow a good or worthy thing.

[xchrom]

5. recommend

[indepat]

6. What nation would, as a result of its official policy, have untold tens of millions of people going

hungry as it gorges the uber-wealthy to a feeding frenzy sucking at the national welfare teat? That's easy, it's in an America wherein the RW's wet dream is gorged by the Congress, the administration, and the high court. :patriot:

[FirstLight]

7. scary & sad

what happens when a populace is so disenfranchised?

[Karenina]

8. Violence.

[Auntie Bush]

9. The same thing that happened in Egypt and Lybia and Syria.

When there is too much wealth at the top and little for everyone else the people get angry. I'm angry! "grr" Rethugs take warning!

[Amonester]

13. See the link in reply #12 below.

I sure wish it could start earlier.

[chill_wind]

10. This is just insane.. depressingly insane

Having to continue to work into your 80's, whether you feel well enough and able or not, just in time to die, or feel close enough to it.

"Based on the study’s findings, “many of the participants had no intention of working past their 60th birthday, but had to change plans after being laid off or following the death of a spouse. Over a third of the participants had retired. Ninety percent of respondents 76 years and older planned to continue working for the next five years.”

A more recent study by the Employee Retirement Benefit Institute found that the best way for Americans to fund retirement is to delay it. The research shows that “if Baby Boomers and Gen Xers delay their retirement past the age of 65, many of them still would not have adequate income to cover their basic retirement expenses and uninsured health care costs.”

But even if a worker delays retirement well into their 80s, they still risk of running out of money in retirement. Among the lowest income group, “90 percent would have to keep working through age 84 before having a 50-50 shot at fully funding retirement,” the institute found. On the bright side, those who wait until their late 70s or early 80s to retire significantly improve their “chance of success for retirement adequacy.”

[Starry Messenger]

11. recommend

[Amonester]

12. K & R

All reasons why the http://www.october2011.org">American Autumn (and other similar organize, inform, action rallies) MUST be successful.

Let's try PEACE here, it's OUR turn!
The PTB MUST listen to US!

[Pooka Fey]

16. + 1,000,000.00

[Pooka Fey]

14. Suicide Amidst Financial Hopelessness and Desperation

I read the article wondering if the authors would have the balls and the honesty to list this coping strategy. They didn't let me down, but rather opened my eyes to a level of desperation I hadn't even imagined - murder of the entire family, and then suicide.

Is there a link between our current Greatest Depression, caused by the looting of our national patrimony by the Ruling Financial Elites and their Money Party lackeys in government, and these acts? Everyone has a breaking point.

[Le Taz Hot]

17. You're right.

NOBODY is talking about this. I'm seeing more homeless these days -- people you can tell are not used to living on the streets. What literally makes me cry? The old people and the children. I watched a carfull of people one night go down an alley. At one point the car stopped, 3 kids jumped out and, literally, climbed through the trash bins looking for food. When they looked at me (I had an evening meeting at a restaurant and was going to my truck) they had that haunted, desperate look -- the one you see in pictures of the Depression. About a month or so ago I saw an old, bent-over gentleman, maybe in his late 70's, pushing a cart and looking tired, sick and exhausted. There have always been homeless in this country but never EVER like this.

Fwiw, my husband gets his last unemployment check this week. I've had 5 hours sleep in 3 days. But for now we have a home, food (thanks to the garden which supplements my very meager grocery bill) and each other -- much better than millions of others have it right now.

[adigal]

18. This "friend" on Facebook said if you are working poor, you shouldn't have kids

I asked the creep what if you had the 4 kids BEFORE you lost your job?? His answer: he said he was poor and homeless and now he made it, he is rich, everyone should do what he does. He owns 3 businesses now.

[Pooka Fey]

19. Some people are incapable of receiving & processing new information

I notice how your "FB friend" skirted your direct question. I can't be around people like that, which severely limits my social circle, as you can imagine. :-)

[Odin2005]

20. I think we will see a return to extended family households.

[CleanGreenFuture]

23. As oil production continues its declining trend, taking civilization with it, yes,

we will see a return to extended family households...and a return to a lot of other things too.

[Odin2005]

28. PO has nothing to do with this, PO can be compensated for technologically.

This is about declining real incomes.

[Divernan]

21. Obama agrees to $500 million cut to WIC; record #s of US children malnourished.

Malnourished children: Not Just for Rwanda anymore! A Big Shout Out/Thank You to President Obama! And to his true believer supporters, too! They all must be so proud!

Here's some specifics on STARVING U.S. kids from the OP's link!

"Nevertheless, 17.2 million American children face the threat of hunger, which is the highest number ever recorded since officials started keeping track in the ‘90s. That is one in four kids who don’t have enough to eat and are at risk of going hungry. According to emergency room doctors in cities around the country, this is leading to a dramatic spike in malnourishment in babies.

The Boston Globe recently reported on shocking levels of infant malnourishment in Massachusetts. Doctors at the Boston Medical Center (BMC) report seeing “more hungry and dangerously thin young children in the emergency room than at any time in more than a decade of surveying families.” And Boston is not alone. Pediatricians in other large cities, including Baltimore, Little Rock, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia, have also seen a rise in infant malnourishment since 2008.

Although Massachusetts has experienced a sharp growth in the number of families that rely on food stamps, BMC doctors told the Globe that “many families are unable to afford enough healthy food to feed their children,” indicating that government programs may be inadequate for families struggling to feed their kids. They also warn that “rising chronic hunger threatens to leave scores of infants and toddlers with lasting learning and developmental problems.” The Globe even likened child malnourishment and hunger among Boston’s poor to levels seen in the "developing world."

Back in April, when President Obama and congressional Republicans agreed to cut $500 million from WIC, doctors Maureen Black and David Paige cautioned that this would “push the nation's fiscal concerns ONTO THE SHOULDERS OF BABIES.” It turns out that their warnings were quite literal.

[Pooka Fey]

22. Learning and Developmental problems in malnourished children

This is no joke. Malnutrition starves a child's developing brain resulting in lower I.Q., etc and this is not reversible later in life.

[SammyWinstonJack]

24. His children are well fed. How does he sleep at night?

[Divernan]

26. There's a psychiatric term for people incapable of feeling guilt.

However, if I state it here, one of his true believer supporters - none of whom have the balls to post on this thread, would doubtless alert on me.

[Divernan]

27. A disproportionate # of the poor, & therefore their children, are minorities

If a white president cut this program, one could accuse him of overt racism.

[Bragi]

25. Great article. Thanks. /nt