Two stories in the NY TImes this weekend speak to the changed socioeconomic landscape of this country.
Across U.S., Food Stamp Use Soars and Stigma Fades
With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children. It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs.
Locally, 28%, nearly a third, of the children in Charlottesville rely on food stamps and in Albemarle County, the figure is 10%. Here is a County by County Interactive Map.
for more, don't miss the NY Times series The Safety Net and the personal stories behind the series: Living with Less, Portraits of a Downturn.
In another heartwrenching sign of the times, Nick Kristof takes a break from his overseas beat to ask Are We Going to Let John Die?, telling the story of mill worker John Brodniak. Diagnosed with a brain tumor and unable to work, John lost his health insurance and could not get new coverage, leaving him with zero access to surgery that could save his life.
Meanwhile, Robert Shiller warns the Recovery May All Be In Your Head.
My take:
- Economic Recovery, which may not yet have begun, is going to be tentative and slow.
- In the meantime, millions of American families are falling into the cracks we stubbornly refuse to mend, sometimes with fatal consequences.
- Even if/when the economy does recover, the long term aftershocks - physical, emotional and financial - to American families, are going to shape the generation who are children today.
- When the economy does recover, stability will remain elusive for the burgeoning American underclass if we do not:
1) have a solid, solvent, effective national healthcare system in place. Here are some choices. Let's pick one that is better than what we have now.
2) improve our educational system to both ensure basic literacy and provide relevant job training. Lots of people working on it, but we seem to be failing in our efforts to improve. In 2008, our high school graduation rate was a sad 77% (Ripley, Amanda,December 8, 2008, Can She Save our Schools. Time Magazine.). A few hours spent watching Cable News reconfirms that stupid people are everywhere, including quite a contingent in the US Congress. I like to allow for personal differences: each of us has gifts and talents, but why are we not choosing our leadership and policy makers from amongst the best & brightest? The only smart person I have seen on TV recently, apart from Rachel Maddow, is this kid from Arkansas.
3) address the ridiculous and growing disparity between the top wage earners and the bottom wage earners. Today's crisis has roots in decades of corporate misbehavior: the absurd CEO salaries coupled with job-shedding: the use of cheap, part time, benefit-less subcontractors in lieu of full time employees. We need a louder national discussion about Wage Disparity,(read that link - it is brief and fascinating): the US ranks at the bottom amongst Western nations, and the consequences of this inequity are enormous. Full details on the OECD study "Growth Unequal".
I would love to have your feedback on this post. Please share your thoughts with me.
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