The county I work in, Jefferson, could easily go into bankruptcy because of a sewer debt that has amassed. But times are great....thanks for asking
I hear that! Jefferson County is a hot mess. Glad I moved outta there when I did.
How's the economy where you live?
by Quirky1 23 Replies latest jw friends
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dinah
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Elsewhere
- At work I know of two people who are "no longer with us".
- More layoffs are expected, but we don't know who or which departments yet.
- According to http://www.zillow.com/ the value of the house I recently bought has gone down about 3% in the last few months.
- My 401k savings have lost about 49% of thier value.
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sammielee24
By JULIE BOSMAN
Published: February 19, 2009
MORRISTOWN, N.J. — Once a crutch for the most needy, food pantries have responded to the deepening recession by opening their doors to what Rosemary Gilmartin, who runs the Interfaith Food Pantry here, described as “the next layer of people” — a rapidly expanding roster of child-care workers, nurse’s aides, real estate agents and secretaries facing a financial crisis for the first time.
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Times Topics: Food Banks and Pantries
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Heidi Schumann for The New York Times Olga Eufracio at a Napa, Calif., food bank; she and her husband have struggled to get work lately.
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Demand at food banks across the country increased by 30 percent in 2008 from the previous year, according to a survey by Feeding America, which distributes more than two billion pounds of food every year. And instead of their usual drop in customers after the holidays, many pantries in upscale suburbs this year are seeing the opposite.
Here in Morris County, one of the wealthiest counties in the country, the Interfaith pantry opened for an extra night last week to accommodate the growing crowds. Among the first-time visitors were Cindy Dreeszen and her husband, who both have steady jobs — his at a movie theater and hers at a government office — with a combined annual income of about $55,000.
But with a 17-month-old son, another baby on the way, and, as Ms. Dreeszen put it, “the cost of everything going up and up,” the couple showed up in search of free groceries.
“I didn’t think we’d even be allowed to come here,” said Ms. Dreeszen, 41, glancing around at the shelves of fruit, whole-wheat pasta and baby food. “This is totally something that I never expected to happen, to have to resort to this.”
In Lake Forest, Ill., a wealthy Chicago suburb, a pantry in an Episcopal church that used to attract people from less affluent towns nearby has lately been flooded with people who have lost jobs. In Greenwich, Conn., a pantry organizer reported a “tremendous” increase in demand for food since December, with out-of-work landscapers and housekeepers as well as real estate professionals who have not made a sale in months filling the line.
And amid the million-dollar houses of Marin County in California, a pantry at the San Geronimo Valley Community Center last month changed its policy to allow people to stop by once a week instead of every other week, since there are so many new faces in line alongside the regulars. “We’re seeing people who work at banks, for software firms, for marketing firms, and they’re all losing their jobs,” said Dave Cort, the executive director. “Here we are in big, fancy Marin County, but we have people who are standing in line with their eyes wide open, thinking, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe I’m here.’ ”
The demand is not limited to pantries, which distribute groceries from food banks, supermarket surplus and individuals who donate through church or school can drives. The number of food-stamp recipients was up by 17 percent across New York State, and 12 percent in New Jersey, in November from a year before. When a mobile unit of the Essex County welfare office, as part of a pilot program to distribute food-stamp applications in other counties, stopped in Shop-Rite parking lots recently in Morris County, it was swamped.
“If one of our richest counties has people signing up for food stamps who have never signed up before, that indicates the depth of this problem with the lack of food,” said Kathleen DiChiara, executive director of Community FoodBank of New Jersey. “It’s the canary in the coal mine.”
Experts said that chronically poor people tend to adapt to the periods where money is scarce by asking for support from friends or tapping into social services, but that working-class people who suddenly lose jobs or homes often find themselves at sea, unsure how to navigate the system or ashamed to seek help.
It is those people who, over the last several months, have started arriving in growing numbers at food pantries, which are often the first tentative step for those whose incomes are too high to qualify for government assistance. (Many pantries have a no-questions policy, though they might determine how many bags of groceries a customer can receive by the number of people in the household.)
“These are people who never really had to ask for help before,” said Brenda Beavers, human services director for the Salvation Army in New Jersey, which dispenses emergency food supplies at 30 pantries throughout the state. “They were once givers and now they’re having to ask for assistance.”
In Morristown, Ms. Gilmartin, who started volunteering at the Interfaith pantry 13 years ago, has watched a stream of new faces pushing shopping carts among the cardboard boxes on metal shelves in a former nursing home. In 2008, the pantry gave away 620,000 pounds of food, a 24 percent increase from 2007; in November, December and January it had a 24 percent increase in customers and a 45 percent increase in food distributed, compared with the same period the previous year.
Along with fresh apples and Nature’s Path Organic Soy Plus cereal, Ms. Gilmartin gives children “Dora the Explorer” books. In the past few months, she has found herself fielding more inquiries about social service programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit from people who clearly had never before hovered this close to the poverty line.
“They look shellshocked,” she said. “I’ve had people walk back out and say, ‘I can’t do this.’ ”
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BizzyBee
I'm in California. Anecdotal information speaks louder than news reports.
My son and DIL (3 children and one on the way) have both been laid off from good jobs in the last 4 months. My dental hygienist and her huband have 4 children (2 fives, a three and a one) and have moved 150 miles north in order to live in her in-laws week-end beach house. She used to have a nanny and now she works 2 days per week, commuting 1 hour each way and her hub is a still-unemployed computer engineer. My best friends, who own an ad agency, have had to borrow from her mom the past three-four months to pay rent.
A year and a half ago we paid nearly $800K for our ocean-view condo and it is now down in value by at least $150 - 200K.
Everywhere I go, the chatter is about making ends meet, family getting laid off, businesses closing. I was at Target this morning with my grandson - for a Friday morning the place was pretty deserted. Large and small retail businesses and big box stores sit empty - leaving whole malls deserted without anchor stores. Restaurants are quiet - tables empty and closing early.
We are in a depression.
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John Doe
I heard on npr today that Family Dollar stocks have increased something like 50% in the last year. People are being more thrifty. Higher end stores are hurting. I think there are pockets in the economy that are good and pockets that are bad, no matter how everyhing is as a whole. I know that my store (home depot) did better than 100% of sales plan last half, and we'll all be getting success sharing checks. Evidently construction is ok here.
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SacrificialLoon
The NOC I work at once had over 120 people now it has 12. Most of that occured during the dot com bubble burst and the WorldCom bankruptcy though. The Dallas Ft. Worth Area as weathered the real estate crash relatively well so far, but it does show signs of weakening as elsewhere pointed out... and checking out Zillow it seems that values in McKinney have fallen off a cliff recently.
Personally I got a raise and bonus this year, but most of that will be banked. Who knows what will come next year, or next quarter for that matter.*shakes fist at ING's rates falling faster than Ft. Myers housing market.*
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BizzyBee
Family Dollar stocks have increased something like 50% in the last year.
Interesting thing and perhaps a glimpse into the future: I've shopped at the local 99-cent store for about a year and a half (since we moved to a new area) and I've noticed that, as they have become busier their product lines have improved drastically. They are much more crowded than they used to be. Their fresh produce used to be iffy - now the quality is such that in some cases it is better than I can find anywhere. Obviously, the increased consumption has had a positive impact on the merchandise they can offer.
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sammielee24
I try not to think about it too much but then I end up talking to people - ....they are scared and broke and their businesses are collapsing. Most of the people I know have lost almost all of their investments and sat on the rest because the economists and talkers in the media kept advising them to do so. Now they've lost even more and the bottom isn't here yet - I have a feeling that depending on who they have investments with, if they don't end up losing it all to the scammers, they'll be broke sooner than later. sammieswife.
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leavingwt
How California Became France
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123517419077037281.html?mod=rss_opinion_main
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BizzyBee
How California Became France"
"No one has the political incentives to cut government," says a Republican strategist. "It takes tremendous political capital,
which Arnold had. It's a tragedy to have this rare moment when you can try to change and waste it."
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Interesting, leavingwt. Makes Mississippi look better and better all the time!
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