Poverty Rate in US rises

[SEC=UGA]

I think you need to read the Jobs bill.

 

Reducing payroll tax . . incentives for hiring long term out of work people . . infrastructure projects to put people to work . .

 

When people talk about record profits and cash, it aint about the mom and pop hardware store across the street, or about any small business. It is about the huge banks that aint lending to small businesses that are sitting on cash or massive multi-national businesses like GE downsizing but hiring in Punjab for a buck a day while raking in massive massive profits.

 

I need to read the bill? I don't have time to sift through 800 pages of minutiae... Unfortunately, I only have time to glean the significant points from articles on CNN, CBS, ABC, Reuters, etc...

 

They are going to decrease my payroll tax per employee from 4.7 to 3.1 (from the normal 6.2) Here's how that math works. To make it easy, let's say my payroll is 800K per year. At the 3.1% level I am saving $24,800 per year. If I bring another person on at $15 per hour and give them benefits, which will cost me roughly $18K per year, given a 40 hour work week, they will cost me $48,000. That means that I will only have to come out of pocket an extra $23,200 for that new employee. Considering I am currently making a profit of $0, well, the math doesn't work out in my favor.

 

Now, I'm not complaining that he is cutting the payroll tax, that's great and should help to spur some economic growth by adding to the bottom line of small business owners, but it is not going to spur a hiring spree.

 

CEOs of large companies see the same thing that small business owners do... No robust recovery in sight. Have you looked at the August numbers on retail sales that cam out? No significant growth. So one may wonder how are these corporations raking in record profits, they have cut their workforce to offset the lack of sales. Kind of a vicious cycle, but, no one is moving right now and they are content to sit on their cash until they see a change of trajectory in the economy.

 

And, of course it isn't about mom and pop hardware stores, it's about the huge corporations, some of them any way, but it is misleading to people and serves only as a divisive issue. Further exacerbating this problem is the idea that someone making over $200K is "rich" and by picking on people, and only people, of this income level and above is absolutely ludicrous. The amount of money to be had by raising their taxes is a drop in the bucket.

 

I realize that taxes, for all income levels, need to be raised, we have a revenue problem. I also realize, however, that spending needs to be cut and that all programs and departments need to be on the table. SS must be reformed, Medicare/caid must be reformed, the HC bill must be repealed (it costs me an additional +/- 6k per month. Think how much this bill will impact someone like GE and you wonder why they aren't hiring), defense needs to be cut, we need to get the hell out of Afghanistan, numerous government departments need to be streamlined and consolidated or dissolved.

 

Interestingly enough, banks aren't lending for numerous reasons, regulations being one of them.

Edited September 15, 2011 by SEC=UGA

[bpwallace49]

Sec . . . here is some math you may be overlooking.

 

1.) you hire a veteran, you get between a 5600 to 9600 tax credit per veteran

2.) You hire a long term unemployed person, you get a 4000 tax credit

3.) you raise wages or hire more people you get a COMPLETE tax holiday for payroll taxes for the business

4.) the 100% expensing continues past this year for re-investmnet in capital

5.) reducing and reforming business regulations

 

Plus, arent you in the construction industry? So all the infrastructure opportunities should increase your business, right? (just making a guess here, but pretty sure you are in construction)

 

These all seem to be pretty helpful to small businesses, and to people that need jobs.

[SEC=UGA]

Sec . . . here is some math you may be overlooking.

 

1.) you hire a veteran, you get between a 5600 to 9600 tax credit per veteran

2.) You hire a long term unemployed person, you get a 4000 tax credit

3.) you raise wages or hire more people you get a COMPLETE tax holiday for payroll taxes for the business

4.) the 100% expensing continues past this year for re-investmnet in capital

5.) reducing and reforming business regulations

 

Plus, arent you in the construction industry? So all the infrastructure opportunities should increase your business, right? (just making a guess here, but pretty sure you are in construction)

 

These all seem to be pretty helpful to small businesses, and to people that need jobs.

 

You hire any of these people you have to fork out an extra sum of money to hire them. It is a good deal IF you have the cash AND the demand/revenue to support a new employee, the majority of businesses DO NOT have either the revenue or the cash to be able to afford to do so.

 

The other aspects are absolutely glorious, but it is going to crash with a resounding thud.

 

A similar infrasturcture program has been in place for the past three years, it was also coupled with other credits for modifying/updating residential properties, and we have already passe dthrough a similar, yet a bit smaller, tax holiday/incentives for hiring more people. These programs had negligible impact and have not produced many results. I'm not saying that the infrastructure program needs to be shelved or that it is completely impotent, but the size of the program is severely lacking. I'm also not saying that these tax credits need to be shelved or that they are completely impotent, but they are not going to create a frenzy of hiring.

 

We do need to start somewhere, and this may be a good start, but all of the details are still yet to be fully exposed (funding, awarding of contracts, speed to market of theinfrastructure projects, etc...) So, I'm not adamantly against it, from what I have read, though I do not think it will have the desired impact and do not think it will create jobs.

 

The one aspect I am adamantly against that almost kills the whole thing for me is the raising of taxes on only those making 200/250 per year. You need to expand who you are going to tax, you need to expand the scope of the infrastructure programs 50 fold, you need to start these projects tomorrow and you need to ax Obama care that is strapping companies with an increased insurance burden.

[bpwallace49]

You hire any of these people you have to fork out an extra sum of money to hire them. It is a good deal IF you have the cash AND the demand/revenue to support a new employee, the majority of businesses DO NOT have either the revenue or the cash to be able to afford to do so.

 

The other aspects are absolutely glorious, but it is going to crash with a resounding thud.

 

A similar infrasturcture program has been in place for the past three years, it was also coupled with other credits for modifying/updating residential properties, and we have already passe dthrough a similar, yet a bit smaller, tax holiday/incentives for hiring more people. These programs had negligible impact and have not produced many results. I'm not saying that the infrastructure program needs to be shelved or that it is completely impotent, but the size of the program is severely lacking. I'm also not saying that these tax credits need to be shelved or that they are completely impotent, but they are not going to create a frenzy of hiring.

 

We do need to start somewhere, and this may be a good start, but all of the details are still yet to be fully exposed (funding, awarding of contracts, speed to market of theinfrastructure projects, etc...) So, I'm not adamantly against it, from what I have read, though I do not think it will have the desired impact and do not think it will create jobs.

 

The one aspect I am adamantly against that almost kills the whole thing for me is the raising of taxes on only those making 200/250 per year. You need to expand who you are going to tax, you need to expand the scope of the infrastructure programs 50 fold, you need to start these projects tomorrow and you need to ax Obama care that is strapping companies with an increased insurance burden.

 

Of course by that you mean "have the temporary tax cuts expire that were never supposed to be permanant" right?

 

PS- My company just got back our insurance renewal. Flat rate, no increase. No "Obamacare" burden here.

 

And for the rest of your post, fair enough. I never said or implied that it would be a "frenzy of hiring" but it sure as SHAM WOW! is better than nothing.

Edited September 15, 2011 by bpwallace49

[cliaz]

I'll say this and leave it at that....

 

My youngest sister got knocked up in high school and by the time she was 25 she had 4 kids, only a high school education, couldn't take on a serious career because she was needed to take care of the kids at home and had a boyfriend (now husband - who I greatly respect because of his dedication to my sister, his 3 kids and 1 step child) who grew up in the south county, didn't finish high school and barely reads on a 5th grade level.

 

They were the definition of poor, using WIC (food stamps), donations from church. When we would offer to help out she would not accept our help. Her mindset was I got myself into this situation and i'll get myself out of this situation. It was a long, brutal journey for her but she became very good at making $1 stretch, made sure all of the kids had after school activities and worked really hard to be put in a position to get a full time job with benefits. Tim (the brother in law) may not be very educated but he is a god when it comes to cars so he found a job working in a junk yard and worked his way up to a position as a full time mechanic.

 

While they still do not make uber gobs of money, they are doing pretty good. The most amazing thing to me is that the mobile home they bought (Yes I have a few splashes of redneck in my family with my brother-in-law being the king neck of maryland) they managed to pay it completely off.

 

The point of my posting is that people who complain they are poor but not doing anything about it to improve their situation and get off of the government boob I have little to no respect for. If my sister can do it - especially with all of the challenges she faced, anyone can do it.

 

We do need entitlements in our country but they shouldn't be seen as a long term solution to a family problem.

[Grande F'n Juan]

It is a good deal IF you have the cash AND the demand/revenue to support a new employee, the majority of businesses DO NOT have either the revenue or the cash to be able to afford to do so.

 

 

Corp Profs At All Time High

[SEC=UGA]

Of course by that you mean "have the temporary tax cuts expire that were never supposed to be permanant" right?

 

PS- My company just got back our insurance renewal. Flat rate, no increase. No "Obamacare" burden here.

 

And for the rest of your post, fair enough. I never said or implied that it would be a "frenzy of hiring" but it sure as SHAM WOW! is better than nothing.

 

Evidently you didn't have employees with children that were going off of your insurance but can now remain for 5 more years.

 

Yes, I mean allow the Bush tax cuts to expire. I also want to shrink the budget to 2007 levels... But, as the saying goes, wish in one hand and sh!t in the other and see which fills up first.

[bpwallace49]

Evidently you didn't have employees with children that were going off of your insurance but can now remain for 5 more years.

Yes, I mean allow the Bush tax cuts to expire. I also want to shrink the budget to 2007 levels... But, as the saying goes, wish in one hand and sh!t in the other and see which fills up first.

 

Nope . . . have 4 of those. Maybe you need a new provider?

[SEC=UGA]

Nope . . . have 4 of those. Maybe you need a new provider?

 

Christ, BP, it isn't that hard to follow...

 

Children that would have fallen off under the "old rules" did not fall off due to the HC bill. Did my rates go up (actually yes, due to issues with my group) no, they stayed the same... But, if the kids who are 22 would have fallen off my rates would have gone down. They are now allowed to stay on until 26, therefore it is costing me more $ because I have to continue to have them on the insurance roll.

 

It has nothing to do with my provider, it has everything to do with the fact that the new HC bill allows them to stay on for extra time.

[Perchoutofwater]

Corp Profs At All Time High

 

I can see a few reason why corporate profits are high that are not necessarily good.

1. The no longer have the competition they had due to profits in 2008 and 2009 being lower than they had at any time in the previous ten years and significantly lower than the average profit margin over the last twenty years.

2. Those in manufacturing are using raw materials previously purchased that were not used in the previous few years.

3. Cutting bloated staffs.

 

I also wonder if that chart is all corporations in the US, and how it counts those that have failed, or if it is a specific segment.

 

Additionally that is profit as it relates to GDP. I would imagine there is some kind of lag there, though I don't know that to be a fact.

[bushwacked]

Corp Profs At All Time High

 

Poverty and Profits at all time highs?

 

I knew the Moosloom Negro was going to spread the wealth.

 

GMOZ Socialism!

Edited September 15, 2011 by bushwacked

[Ursa Majoris]

I can see a few reason why corporate profits are high that are not necessarily good.

1. The no longer have the competition they had due to profits in 2008 and 2009 being lower than they had at any time in the previous ten years and significantly lower than the average profit margin over the last twenty years.

2. Those in manufacturing are using raw materials previously purchased that were not used in the previous few years.

3. Cutting bloated staffs.

 

I also wonder if that chart is all corporations in the US, and how it counts those that have failed, or if it is a specific segment.

 

Additionally that is profit as it relates to GDP. I would imagine there is some kind of lag there, though I don't know that to be a fact.

Would you care to square the second graph down against the persistent claim that corporate taxes are too high?

[WaterMan]

Boy you guys just killed this thread with those graphs.

Edited September 16, 2011 by WaterMan

[Perchoutofwater]

Would you care to square the second graph down against the persistent claim that corporate taxes are too high?

 

How many of the countries with higher taxation than the US have a better economy? How many of the countries with a higher tax rate have a lower unemployment rate? I wonder how the US would stand if taxation was associated with population in lieu of GDP. I also wonder how many of those countries you would rather live in.

[Ursa Majoris]

How many of the countries with higher taxation than the US have a better economy? How many of the countries with a higher tax rate have a lower unemployment rate? I wonder how the US would stand if taxation was associated with population in lieu of GDP. I also wonder how many of those countries you would rather live in.

So you aren't going to argue that the complaints about the corporate tax rate are a bunch of horse poo?

 

And are you really using the economy and unemployment rate that you usually fulminate about to defend your stance?

[SEC=UGA]

Would you care to square the second graph down against the persistent claim that corporate taxes are too high?

 

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- General Electric filed more than 7,000 income tax returns in hundreds of global jurisdictions last year, but when push came to shove, the company owed the U.S. government a whopping bill of $0.

 

How'd it pull off that trick? By losing lots of money.

 

GE had plenty of earnings last year -- just not in the United States. For tax purposes, the company's U.S. operations lost $408 million, while its international businesses netted a $10.8 billion profit.

 

That left GE (GE, Fortune 500) with no U.S. profit left for Uncle Sam to tax. Corporations typically face a 35% federal income tax on their earnings. Thanks to its deductions and adjustments, GE reported an actual U.S. federal income tax rate of negative 10.5%. It got to add a "tax benefit" of $1.1 billion back into its reported earnings.

 

"This is the first time in at least decades that GE has reported negative U.S. pretax income and it reflects the worst economy since the Great Depression," Anne Eisele, GE's director of financial communications, said via e-mail.

 

But what about the $10.8 billion profit overseas? GE is "indefinitely" deferring income tax payments on those profits, Eisele said.

 

It may seem like accounting magic, but it's completely legit.

 

GE isn't the only "Top 5" company on this year's Fortune 500 list that owed no income taxes. Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), which suffered major losses in 2009, included a tax benefit of $1.9 billion in its annual profit.

 

"That's one way of escaping taxes," said Scott Hodge, president of the Tax Foundation. "Companies get to deduct their losses, so if there's no earnings, then they pay no income tax."

 

But GE isn't exactly escaping all tax-related pain: The company paid almost $23 billion in taxes to governments around the world from 2000 to 2009, Eisele said.

 

Plus, paying the accountants to crank out 7,000 tax returns can't be cheap.

 

And then there's all the lawyers needed to defend those returns. GE filed tax paperwork in more than 250 jurisdictions around the world last year. "We are under examination or engaged in tax litigation in many of these jurisdictions," the company dryly notes in its annual report.

 

GE may not owe the IRS, but it still has to file -- and its filings are epic.

 

In 2006, as the IRS ramped up its corporate e-filing program, the tax agency actually issued a celebratory press release when it processed GE's tax return. On paper, the return -- the nation's largest -- would have totaled a massive 24,000 pages. But instead, the IRS was able to upload the 237 MB document in under an hour.

 

Reading it, though, is apparently taking a bit longer. The IRS is currently auditing GE's tax returns for 2003-2007.

 

Now, If GE thought that they could repatriate that money and pay lower taxes in the US than in the countries where they operate, don't you think they would do just that?

Edited September 16, 2011 by SEC=UGA

[yo mama]

Now, If GE thought that they could repatriate that money and pay lower taxes in the US than in the countries where they operate, don't you think they would do just that?

I think the better approach is for the US to just tax corporate worldwide income currently by eliminating the incentive to keep money offshore. Just eliminate the timing benefit. That's fair, considering that's how we individual's are taxed (i.e., on worldwide income, regardless of whether the cash comes back to the US). I fail to see why corporations should be treated better than the citizenry.

 

And jobs would come back to the US if there is no tax incentive to create jobs elsewhere. All we'd really be doing is putting companies like GE on the same playing field as every American small business that earns 100% of revenue right here in the US.

Edited September 16, 2011 by yo mama

[SEC=UGA]

I think the better approach is for the US to just tax corporate worldwide income currently by eliminating the incentive to keep money offshore. Just eliminate the timing benefit. That's fair, considering that's how we individual's are taxed (i.e., on worldwide income, regardless of whether the cash comes back to the US). I fail to see why corporations should be treated better than the citizenry.

 

And jobs would come back to the US if there is no tax incentive to create jobs elsewhere. All we'd really be doing is putting companies like GE on the same playing field as every American small businesses that earns 100% of revenue right here in the US.

 

Or they'd become a corporation of another country, say Zug, Switzerland or Bermuda.

 

But, I do agree with you. Make the tax rates more friendly and don't allow them to offshore.

[Ursa Majoris]

Or they'd become a corporation of another country, say Zug, Switzerland or Bermuda.

 

But, I do agree with you. Make the tax rates more friendly and don't allow them to offshore.

How about no government contracts to companies that offshore work or have parked profits abroad? This would apply to subsidiaries too, so parent companies wouldn't be able to hide behind a smaller 100% US operation.

[Perchoutofwater]

So you aren't going to argue that the complaints about the corporate tax rate are a bunch of horse poo?

 

And are you really using the economy and unemployment rate that you usually fulminate about to defend your stance?

 

All I'm saying is that those countries with higher rates effective rates tend to have higher unemployment and less attractive economies. I actually agree with what Yo Mama is saying. I think we should do what he suggests, but at the same time lower the rates.

[WaterMan]

How about no government contracts to companies that offshore work or have parked profits abroad? This would apply to subsidiaries too, so parent companies wouldn't be able to hide behind a smaller 100% US operation.

 

But this is America. Companies should have the right to abuse workers overseas when we won't take that here.

[Perchoutofwater]

How about no government contracts to companies that offshore work or have parked profits abroad? This would apply to subsidiaries too, so parent companies wouldn't be able to hide behind a smaller 100% US operation.

 

Are you going to also make it where the US government can not contract out to foreign countries as well? If not then you foreign companies using cheaper labor and loser regulations would get a ton of contracts. If you don't allow foreign companies bid on our work, more than likely other countries will not allow US companies bid on their work. Yo Mama has the better solution which is to just tax companies like you tax individuals.

[SEC=UGA]

At a food pantry in a Chicago suburb, a 38-year-old mother of two breaks into tears.

 

She and her husband have been out of work for nearly two years. Their house and car are gone. So is their foothold in the middle class and, at times, their self-esteem.

 

"It's like there is no way out," says Kris Fallon.

 

She is trapped like so many others, destitute in the midst of America's abundance. Last week, the Census Bureau released new figures showing that nearly one in six Americans lives in poverty — a record 46.2 million people. The poverty rate, pegged at 15.1 percent, is the highest of any major industrialized nation, and many experts believe it could get worse before it abates.

 

 

The numbers are daunting — but they also can seem abstract and numbing without names and faces.

 

Associated Press reporters around the country went looking for the people behind the numbers. They were not hard to find.

 

There's Tim Cordova, laid off from his job as a manager at a McDonald's in New Mexico, and now living with his wife at a homeless shelter after a stretch where they slept in their Ford Focus.

 

There's Bill Ricker, a 74-year-old former repairman and pastor whose home is a dilapidated trailer in rural Maine. He scrapes by with a monthly $1,003 Social Security check. His ex-wife also is hard up; he lets her live in the other end of his trailer.

 

There's Brandi Wells, a single mom in West Virginia, struggling to find a job and care for her 10-month-old son. "I didn't realize that it could go so bad so fast," she says.

 

Some were outraged by the statistics. Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund called the surging child poverty rate "a national disgrace." Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., cited evidence that poverty shortens life spans, calling it "a death sentence for tens and tens of thousands of our people."

 

Overall, though, the figures seemed to be greeted with resignation, and political leaders in Washington pressed ahead with efforts to cut federal spending. The Pew Research Center said its recent polling shows that a majority of Americans — for the first time in 15 years of being surveyed on the question — oppose more government spending to help the poor.

 

"The news of rising poverty makes headlines one day. And the next it is forgotten," said Los Angeles community activist and political commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson.

 

Such is life in the Illinois town of Pembroke, one of the poorest in the Midwest, where schools and stores have closed. Keith Bobo, a resident trying to launch revitalization programs, likened conditions to the Third World.

 

"A lot of the people here just feel like they are on an island, like no one even knows that they exist," he said.

 

Struggling on $18,000 a year

 

It's hard to find some of the poorest residents in Pembroke. They live in places like the tree-shaded gravel road where the Bargy family's dust-smudged trailer is wedged in the soil, flanked by overgrown grass.

 

By the official numbers, Pembroke's 3,000 residents are among the poorest in the region, but the problem may be worse. The mayor believes as many as 2,000 people were uncounted, living far off the paths that census workers trod.

 

The staples that make up the town square are gone: No post office, no supermarket, no pharmacy, no barber shop or gas station. School doors are shuttered. The police officers were all laid off, a meat processing plant closed. In many places, light switches don't work, and water faucets run dry. Residents let their garbage smolder on their lawn because there's no truck to take it away; many homes are burned out.

 

Ken Bargy, 58, had to stop working five years ago because of his health and is now on disability. His wife drives a school bus in a neighboring town. He sends his children, 15 and 10, to school 20 miles away. In the back of the trailer, he offers shelter to his elderly mother, who is bedridden and dying of cancer.

 

The $18,000 the family pieces together from disability payments and paychecks must go to many things: food, lights, water, medical bills. There are choices to make.

 

"With the cost of everything going up, I have to skip a light bill to get food or skip a phone bill to get food," he says. "My checking account is about 20 bucks in the hole."

 

About 75 miles away, in the Chicago suburb of Hoffman Estates, dozens of families lined up patiently outside the Willow Creek Care Center as truckloads of food for the poor were unloaded.

 

Among those waiting was Kris Fallon of nearby Palatine, mother of a teen and an infant, who hitched a ride with a friend.

 

She recounted how she and her husband — once earning nearly $100,000 a year between the two of them- lost their jobs, forcing them to move from their rented home into an apartment and give up their car.

"We fight a lot because of the situation," she said. "We wonder where we are going to come up with money to pay rent, where we are going to get food, formula for the baby."

 

She began to cry.

 

"I never understood why there were so many food pantries and why people couldn't just get on their feet and get going, but now that I'm in it, I fully understand," she said. "I sometimes feel like I am a loser ... I have never been unemployed and I never thought I would be going through this, ever."

 

Her husband, Jim, 43, said he's looked for jobs all over the country in the past two years, and just accepted an offer of a three-month stint in Paducah, Ky., on a hotel reconstruction project.

 

"Leaving for a job out of state for three months is what I have to do," he said. "It's terrible but it's our reality ... I guess this is the new America."

 

By Robert Ray

Sharing poverty with a former spouse

 

Bill Ricker's woes date back to the 1980s, when he injured himself falling through rotten floorboards while doing carpentry at an inn. He hasn't worked since.

 

He now lives in one end of a cluttered old trailer in Hartford, Maine, 60 miles north of Portland.

 

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Ricker has two college degrees. As a younger man he worked as an electronics repairman, a pastor and a TV cameraman. He and his first wife had seven children.

 

Now he receives food stamps, gets donations from a local food pantry and drives an 18-year-old car with 198,000 miles.

 

For a treat, he goes out to lunch at a cafe in a nearby town — about once every two months.

 

"I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't chew and I don't go with girls that do," Ricker said. "In other words, on that income you don't do very much outside the home."

 

After finishing high school in 1956, Ricker earned an associate degree in electronics engineering and went to work selling and repairing marine electronics.

 

He later earned a theology degree and served as a pastor at churches in New Hampshire and Vermont. But times were hard on a pastor's salary, so he returned to Maine, eventually becoming a cameraman and studio engineer for a TV station.

 

After being laid off in the 1980s, he was hired to do some carpentry for an inn. His first day on the job, the floorboards gave way.

 

With his injuries, he could no longer tend to the three-unit apartment house he and his wife owned. They sold it, bought a used trailer for $7,000 and settled on a lot in Hartford, a town of about 1,000 people.

 

Ricker and his second wife, Judith Odyssey, divorced around 1995 and she moved out. But he offered to let her move back in nine years ago when she was going through a rough time, and she now lives in the other end of the trailer. She gets $674 a month in Social Security.

 

Besides his back and shoulder injuries, Ricker has diabetes, eye and breathing problems, and his hands shake. Odyssey has congestive heart problems, asthma and arthritis.

 

It's hard to make ends meet. Rent for the lot is $150 a month; Ricker has to buy insurance and gas for his minivan and pay bills for electricity and a phone.

 

He shops at a discount grocery store, gets canned goods from a food pantry, scours garage sales for clothes.

 

It cost $3,200 last winter to heat the poorly insulated trailer with kerosene, which was partially offset with about $1,000 in heating assistance funds.

 

Inside the trailer, ceiling tiles are coming loose and electrical wires dangle in the bathroom where a light fixture once hung. An old dryer, a mattress, a snow blower, discarded chairs and other junk are strewn about outside.

 

Still, Ricker keeps his sense of humor.

 

"I'm sorry I make jokes at everything," Ricker said. "But it's the only way to keep going."

 

By Clarke Canfield

 

Broke — and facing the unexpected

 

Until a few months ago, Brandi Wells lived paycheck to paycheck. She was poor, but she got by. Now, the 22-year-old lives "penny to penny."

 

Wells started working as a waitress at 17 and continued when she got pregnant last year. She worked until the day she delivered 10-month-old son Logan, she says, and came back a week later. But finding child care was a challenge, and about three months ago, after one too many missed shifts, she was fired.

 

In no time, she was homeless. The subsidized apartment in Kingwood, W.Va., that had cost her only $36 a month came with a catch: She had to have a job. Without one — and with no way to pay her utilities — she was evicted.

 

Logan went to live with his grandmother in another town while Wells stayed with a friend for three weeks in a filthy house with no running water.

 

"I didn't realize that it could go so bad so fast," she says now. "I was working. I was trying. I felt like I was doing everything I could. But everyone was saying I needed to do more.

 

"They say, 'It's your fault. You don't need to live off the government,"' Wells says. "For some people, yes, it is their fault. ... I didn't deserve to lose my job. I worked as hard as I could."

 

Wells filed for assistance from the state human resource department and got three free nights at a low-budget motel and $50 for gas to hunt for a new job. It didn't last long.

 

"The way it is now, you can't hardly find a job," she says. "I've applied here, there, everywhere."

 

Eventually, Wells and her fiance, Thomas McDaniel, found a two-bedroom apartment. After a few weeks, its walls and floors remain bare. The only furniture is in the living room — an old green sofa, a foam twin mattress, a play pen stuffed with toys.

 

Rent is $400 a month, and Wells is hoping that since McDaniel has just landed a job at Subway, they'll be able to afford it.

 

For now, her income consists of the $300 a month the state pays her to attend a daily self-sufficiency class, the $30 or so she earns at a bar once or twice a week, food stamps, and the $96 a month in child support she gets from Logan's father — "barely enough for diapers and wipes."

 

She gets help from the Raymond Wolfe Center, where she can pick up a week's worth of food once a month. And she's grateful for her class, which is teaching her how to manage her money and distinguish wants from needs.

 

She knew the difference before, she says. As a new mom, she just didn't care.

 

"I was in the stage where I wanted to give Logan everything ... and I couldn't afford it," she says. "And it caused me to be broke."

 

Wells says she's motivated to get back on track: "I want to get out of these low-income apartments. I want an actual house for my son. I want a car that's not on the verge of breaking down."

 

She's hoping her typing skills will lead to a secretarial job. Long term, she wants to go to college and eventually work as a mortician.

 

"It's a job you can't lose, she says with a grin. "They don't run out of business, generally."

 

But as if the odds weren't already stacked against her, Wells has two more challenges.

 

She needs to answer for speeding tickets she couldn't afford to pay. That resulted in a suspended license, further limiting her ability to look for work.

 

And, unexpectedly, she's pregnant.

"I've never been into the idea of abortion ...," she says, her voice trailing off. "Me and my fiance are talking about it. I don't know what we're going to do."

 

By Vicki Smith

 

A growing boy has to eat, but how?

 

Wearing a navy blue pea coat, her eyelids dusted with shimmery shadow, Pamela Gray looked as though she was headed into work. Instead, she was standing in line at a Manhattan food pantry, where hundreds of people waited patiently to fill suitcases with groceries or meet with a social worker.

 

Going on a year without a job, Gray likes to rise early and ride the subway down from the Bronx to visit the West Side Campaign Against Hunger, New York's largest food pantry, which is tucked inside a church basement.

 

"When I was working as a home attendant, I had a check every week. So you know, the food thing wasn't a problem," said Gray, a single mother of three teens who was injured while caring for an elderly woman last year and had to quit her job. "But when you don't work like you used to every day — you don't know that you have the money — you have to go pick up food where you can."

 

Gray, 47, was meeting with the center's social workers about paying off $12,000 in student loans from Bronx Community College, where she earned a bachelor's degree. Her only source of income for now is occasional money from selling Mary Kay makeup and a couple of paychecks a year when she pulls shifts as an elections worker.

 

It's been hard on her 14-year-old son, who is growing fast and likes to eat. A lot.

 

"He likes Chinese food, chicken with broccoli, and then he likes his pizza," she said, laughing. "Yesterday I give him his $3.50 for lunch and tell him next week, you know, see what happens."

 

Gray made a follow-up appointment with a counselor — promising to bring the necessary paperwork next time — and then headed back onto the street. She walked to another church a few blocks away, where a woman was handing out free coffee and sandwiches.

 

She put the sandwich in her purse and settled down on the church steps to enjoy her coffee before heading to a public library. That's where she spends most of her time — using the computer, applying for jobs, devouring books.

 

"I'm reading this one, they talking about sentencing in prison," she said, tapping the cover. "I really like to read on child issues and stuff. But if they don't have it, I get another book."

 

And she waits for that long-awaited job offer to come through. She is optimistic about the latest one: a position working with children at a juvenile home. After all, she says, she has a certificate in child care from New York University.

 

"I think I'm gonna get it," she said, a smile spreading across her face. "I've been trying. I don't give up. I keep trying."

 

 

By Meghan Barr

 

 

"They didn't have to sleep on the floor"

 

The walls in Monique Brown's public-housing apartment have only a few decorations, sheets cover the windows and the cupboards are mostly empty. But it's a big step up nonetheless.

 

Until a few weeks ago, the 30-year-old single mom and her four children, ages 2 to 9, were homeless and staying in a Salvation Army shelter in downtown Birmingham, Ala.

 

Brown was married, living in Florida and working two jobs — one in a hotel laundry, the other at a retail store — when the recession hit. Today, those seem like the good old days.

 

"I never really had to worry about food and the basic necessities because I knew there was always a paycheck coming in a week," she said.

 

Brown lost both jobs in 2008 and split with her husband, forcing a move to Alabama to live with her brother and his family. An arrangement that was supposed to last for a couple months stretched to a year because Brown wasn't able to find work, and the strain was soon showing on her brother's household. Fearful for his marriage, Brown and her children took refuge in the shelter.

 

"It was the best option for us because they could have their own beds, they didn't have to sleep on the floor," she said. "I didn't want them to get the full effect of being homeless."

 

While her three boys went to elementary school, Brown cared for her 2-year-old daughter and sought work. She wasn't picky, but nothing turned up.

 

Still jobless, Brown found out about a public housing unit last month in the Birmingham suburb or Fairfield. With the Salvation Army paying her deposits and purchasing furniture and some appliances for her, Brown was able to swing a place of her own using $573 a month in disability payments for one of her sons, food stamps and donations.

 

Brown has been able to save about $100 and she's still looking for work. But finding a job is difficult because she has to balance potential work schedules against her children's schedules and the high cost of day care.

 

"Right now I'm just taking small steps," she said.

 

 

Nearly two years ago, on the day after a vacation, Tim Cordova was laid off from his job as a manager at a McDonald's. At the time, he and his wife, Sandra, an employee at a Subway restaurant, lived in a two-story house in the Albuquerque suburb of Ventana Ranch.

 

As the economy worsened in New Mexico, one of the nation's poorest states, Cordova struggled to find work and his wife's hours were slashed until she, too, was laid off.

 

They moved to a smaller house, then to a small apartment. By this June, unemployment benefits had run out and they resorted to living out of their Ford Focus.

 

"I was searching for jobs while I was collecting unemployment, and I could not get hired at all," said Cordova, 41, who is now living with his wife at an emergency homeless shelter called Joy Junction.

 

Sandra Cordova said her job search also has been fruitless.

 

Jeremy Reynalds, founder and CEO of Joy Junction, said he's never seen such high levels of homelessness and poverty in his 25 years of running the shelter, now New Mexico's largest.

 

"Demand is going higher, and higher, and higher," he said. "I mean, it really is scary."

 

Just a few years ago, the shelter was averaging around 100 residents a night. Now, Reynolds says, it's regularly filled with 300 every evening, and people are turned away every day.

 

The Cordovas said they see their situation as a "test from God" and are taking advantage of Joy Junction's life-skills programs. Sandra Cordova is taking computer classes and Tim is helping with shelter security. Both said they are not ashamed of their situation; they've even invited their grandchildren to visit the shelter.

 

"I just want another house. I just want another job," said Tim. "I want to prove that I can do it the right way."

 

Reynalds said donations to the shelter are down, but more people are helping out in person.

 

"More people are opting to volunteer," said Reynalds, "because I think they know that are a paycheck or two away from being homeless themselves."

[Ursa Majoris]

What point are you trying to make here?

[SEC=UGA]

What point are you trying to make here?

 

I'm not, just posting an article that touches on the subject matter at hand.