The New Poor

[superconnected]

Source: NY Times

Even as the American economy shows tentative signs of a rebound, the human toll of the recession continues to mount, with millions of Americans remaining out of work, out of savings and nearing the end of their unemployment benefits.

Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to create jobs in sufficient numbers to absorb the record-setting ranks of the long-term unemployed.

Call them the new poor: people long accustomed to the comforts of middle-class life who are now relying on public assistance for the first time in their lives -- potentially for years to come.

Yet the social safety net is already showing severe strains. Roughly 2.7 million jobless people will lose their unemployment check before the end of April unless Congress approves the Obama administration's proposal to extend the payments, according to the Labor Department.

Read more: http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/108886/the-new-poor

[The Stranger]

1. This is the excerpt, here:

She has learned to live without the prescription medications she is supposed to take for high blood pressure and cholesterol. She has become effusively religious -- an unexpected turn for this onetime standup comic with X-rated material -- finding in Christianity her only form of health insurance.

[cutlassmama]

2. I'm pretty sure this was already posted a few days ago. It's still

a good piece though.

[WCGreen]

It is basically a rehash of a front page NYT article....

[Nikki Stone1]

8. The rich get richer and the poor get religion

This has been in the works for some time.

[maryf]

3. Lets not forget those who've been poor a long time...

They are having it even tougher as the ranks grow...

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. This part is jaw dropping to me:

From the bottom of part 2 of the article:

"I've got 10 bags of pinto beans," she says. "And I have no clue how to cook a pinto bean."

Wow.....just ....wow.

[superconnected]

6. I've never cooked a pinto bean either. I'm a vegetarian so I supposed I ought to

know but I was never much into leguames. Plus I don't really cook.

[Coyote_Bandit]

5. And let's not forget that some of the long-term unemployed

didn't qualify for the last extension of unemployment benefits - and surely won't should there be another.

[superconnected]

7. The ATM one got me, then reduced to house cleaning.

"On a recent weekend, she was running errands with her 18-year-old son when they stopped at an A.T.M. and he saw her checking account balance: $50.

"He says, 'Is that all you have?'" she recalled. "'Are we going to be O.K.?'"

Yes, she replied -- and not only for his benefit.

"I have to keep telling myself it's going to be O.K.," she said. "Otherwise, I'd go into a deep depression."

Last week, she made up fliers advertising her eagerness to clean houses -- the same activity that provided her with spending money in high school, and now the only way she sees fit to provide for her kids. She plans to place the fliers on porches in some other neighborhood."

[DisgustedInMN]

9. There are more and more of us...

...living this everyday, not just reading about it on websites, then heading off to our job without giving it much more thought. Had someone told me that I would be facing what I am today, just 2 years ago or so, I would have told them they were nuts. This is NOT merely a "recession" to those of us living it, it is a DEPRESSION. When (not if) it sweeps up the majority of middle America, as it surely will, it won't be quite so easy to say a few condescending words, then look the other way.

[truedelphi]

10. If we lived in a world like that of the fifties and sixties

Where the news media still had decent journalists, then we would be sure to hear it was a "Depression."

But the Corporate owned newspapers care only that the Obama recovery will help them. As long as that is true, then they are very careful no0t to parse any of his statements. Or to examine the truths of what is going on.

It doesn't take an Einstein to see this is a jobless, homeless "recovery." And that my friends is an oxymoron.

BTW my County is at 17.5 percent unemployment.

[shireen]

11. sometimes, i wish we could create an alternate economy

one that is not tied to wall st. and mega-corporations. a system that would embrace the jobless, family farms, small businesses in communities, people who are sick of the corruption of our conventional economy, and those looking for a sustainable financial system.

that would be so nice ....

:(