Older Hispanics unable to recover from recession

[Liberal_in_LA]

Older Hispanics unable to recover from recession


Alberto Tarud, 63, works 15 hours a week as a greeter in the lobby of a state office building in Miami, Fla., as part of a federal jobs training program for workers 55-plus that Congress has sharply cut. (Equal Voice photo by Emily Michot)



MIAMI, Fla. — Alberto Tarud would like to treat your lawn for pests, notarize your will or provide security at your office.

Really, he’d like any kind of job at all.

Tarud, 63, knows first hand how the recession and the subsequent jobless “recovery” have disproportionately affected people like him. He used to run a plastic-bag factory in his native Colombia. In 2006, he moved to South Florida to be closer to his adult daughters, brother and grandchildren. He has a work permit and was able to buy a home in southern Miami-Dade County in 2008.

But, for two years now, Tarud has been unemployed or underemployed; his home is under water with a mortgage higher than the value of his house, and his grown daughters and his brother have to help him with car payment.

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Tarud worries what will happen if he gets sick – he has no health or disability insurance – or if he loses his home.

“I guess I’d have to move in with one of my daughters,” he said outside the government building where he works as a greeter three hours a day for minimum wage. “They help me when they can, but they can’t afford to support me.”

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The Pew report pinned the disparity on the fact that Hispanics have more of their assets tied up in housing and a disproportionate share live in the states where property values fell the most: Florida, California, Nevada and Arizona.

Tarud knows just what the report is talking about. He bought his home for $87,000 in 2008, when he was working for the pest control company and felt his future was secure enough to sink his savings into a down payment. Now, the modest, two-bedroom is worth about $32,000, according to the county property appraiser.

http://oncentral.org/news/2011/09/23/older-hispanics-unable-recover-recession/

[abelenkpe]

1. K&R nt

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. If they keep voting Republican in South Florida, there's not much anyone

can do for them.

Republican = the party of mean.