For Some Ohioans, Even Meat Is Out Of Reach (She pays #100 for rent)

NPR ^ | 7/17/08 | Yuki Noguchi

[paulat]

Feeling The Economic Pinch For Some Ohioans, Even Meat Is Out Of Reach by Yuki Noguchi

Katia Dunn/NPR Angelica Hernandez (left) and her mother, Gloria Nunez, struggle to make ends meet on a very limited budget.

All Things Considered, July 17, 2008 · A generation ago, the livelihood of Gloria Nunez's family was built on cars.

Her father worked at General Motors for 45 years before retiring. Her mother taught driver's education. Nunez and her six siblings grew up middle class.

Things have changed considerably for this Ohio family.

Nunez's van broke down last fall. Now, her 19-year-old daughter has no reliable transportation out of their subsidized housing complex in Fostoria, 40 miles south of Toledo, to look for a job.

Nunez and most of her siblings and their spouses are unemployed and rely on government assistance and food stamps. Some have part-time jobs, but working is made more difficult with no car or public transportation.

Low-income families in Ohio say they are particularly hard-hit by the changes in the economy, according to a new poll conducted by NPR, The Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard School of Public Health. Two-thirds of lower-income respondents, or 66 percent, say paying for gas is a serious problem because of recent changes in the economy. Nearly half of low-income Ohioans, or 47 percent, say that getting a well-paying job or a raise in pay is also major problem.

'I Just Can't Get A Job'

Nunez, 40, has never worked and has no high school degree. She says a car accident 17 years ago left her depressed and disabled, incapable of getting a job. Instead, she and her daughter, Angelica Hernandez, survive on a $637 Social Security check and $102 in food stamps.

Hernandez received her high school diploma and has had several jobs in recent years. But now, because fewer restaurants and stores are hiring, she says she finds it hard to find a job. Even if she could, she says it's particularly hard to imagine how she'll keep it. She says she needs someone to give her a lift just to get to an interview. And with gas prices so high, she's not sure she could afford to pay someone to drive her to work every day.

People tell Nunez her daughter could get more money in public assistance if she had a child.

"A lot of people have told me, 'Why don't your daughter have a kid?'"

They both reject that as a plan.

"I'm trying to get a job," Hernandez says. "I just can't get a job."

Hernandez says she's trying to get training to be a nurse's assistant, but without her own set of wheels or enough money to pay others for gas, it hasn't been easy.

'What's Going To Happen To Us?'

Most of their extended family lives in the same townhouse complex. The only employer within walking distance is a ThyssenKrupp factory that makes diesel engine parts. That facility, which employs 400 people, is shutting down and moving to Illinois next year.

The only one with a car is Irma Hernandez, Nunez's mother. Hernandez says that with a teenage son still at home, the cost of feeding him and sending him to school is rising, and she can no longer pay for the car.

She's now two car payments behind.

"I'm about to lose my car," she says on her way to pick up one of her daughters to take her to Toledo. "So then what's going to happen to us?"

So Nunez and her daughter are mostly stuck at home.

The rising cost of food means their money gets them about a third fewer bags of groceries — $100 used to buy about 12 bags of groceries, but now it's more like seven or eight. So they cut back on expensive items like meat, and they don't buy extras like ice cream anymore. Instead, they eat a lot of starches like potatoes and noodles.

[Crolis]

Where do you find a good source for coupons? My wife and I were married about 6 weeks ago and we’re in the process of merging our stuff and setting up short and long term budgets. The newspaper inserts advertise specials, but don’t seem to have the number of coupons that I remember seeing in magazines like Good Housekeeping, etc.

Any advice would be much appreciated. I know some of the fellow Freepers are quite creative when it comes to stretching dollars.

[panthermom]

Sunday newspaper is the best place to find coupons. I’ve started using them myself, it’s been years since I’ve done that.

[ShandaLear]

Sounds like a meal for one for these two.

[xDGx]

P&G runs their brandsaver coupons the beginning of each month. Check here for where to find it:

http://www.pgeverydaysolutions.com/pgeds/en_US/jsp/EDS_Page.jsp?pageID=SCSCL

Note that many of these coupons can be stacked on sales from CVS, Rite-Aid & Walgreens

HTH

[commonguymd]

They say people have said the daughter should get pregnant. How would you know?

[commonguymd]

OMG you are terrible! lmao

[JustaDumbBlonde]

"When? 1965?"

LOL! Exactly what I thought the first time I read this article yesterday. I have dropped $100 and come away with 2 bags (or part of a box at Sam's). I guess they could get 12 bags if they were buying all Ramen noodles or sumpthin'.

[texan75010]

Only a liberal would see a problem with these two not getting enough to eat.....as for the daughter having a baby....isn’t baby the “other white meat”?

[Trillian]

I find coupons online:
smartsource.com
coupons.com
target.com
boodle.com
Plus you can always check the websites of your favorite products. They sometimes offer them. You can find them in the Sunday paper and even on store shelves in coupon machines.
Go to hotcouponworld.com they have a huge resource for saving money, living frugal and finding deals depending on where you live and what stores you shop at.

[TigersEye]

Maybe part of my problem is I still think in terms of paper grocery bags. lol It does take between 3-5 of those stupid plastic bags to hold what one double bagged paper sack would hold.

RDdB, I know groceries cost a lot more than they used to. I started buying my own in about '73. But even then I used to have such a disappointed feeling when I left the store $100 lighter with maybe two bags of groceries and there wasn't much meat in either one. Of course it hurt a little more then making $2 per hour.

[Dick Vomer]

I wonder if she's got cable tv. I wonder if she's got a cell phone.

We're the only country in the world with FAT poor people.

These stories are such a load of cr#p. What a "real" reporter would do is to look at the family's finances, go through her refrigerator, spend a week with the family and figure out where a 300 lb woman manages to stuff her face and not work.

this is what the democrat party loves..... pathetic, "disabled" non-workers stuffing their snouts in the trough and voting for more benefits.

[50sDad]

I am staring at two enormously fat women of color, complaining that they can't get food for free up to their standards when they have chosen not to learn and not to work. I am staring at a tiny child, bone thin, starving to death in an African country run by a corrupt black madman who threw out every white farmer that made Zimbabwe the breadbasket of Africa, and replaced them with political cronies who knew nothing about farming.

I am shaking my head at the portion of black American society that thinks we owe reparations money because two hundred years ago, their genetic ancestors were (cruelly, admitted) treated to a one way ticket out of a hot, sweaty, third world pesthole of a continent to a land where two centuries later, they can still use what never happened personally to them as an excuse to eat free food from the public trough, and complain that it isn't good enough.

[50sDad]

I am staring at two enormously fat women of color, complaining that they can't get food for free up to their standards when they have chosen not to learn and not to work. I am staring at a tiny child, bone thin, starving to death in an African country run by a corrupt black madman who threw out every white farmer that made Zimbabwe the breadbasket of Africa, and replaced them with political cronies who knew nothing about farming.

I am shaking my head at the portion of black American society that thinks we owe reparations money because two hundred years ago, their genetic ancestors were (cruelly, admitted) treated to a one way ticket out of a hot, sweaty, third world pesthole of a continent to a land where two centuries later, they can still use what never happened personally to them as an excuse to eat free food from the public trough, and complain that it isn't good enough.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***...they can still use what never happened personally to them as an excuse to eat free food from the public trough, and complain that it isn’t good enough. ****

This reminds me of the Katrina hurricane woman who complained on TV that they didn’t like the food the rescuers were bringing in. “We want HOT food!” she said.

[isom35]

I’m sure others have asked, but which is the daughter”?

[Bishop_Malachi]

“Beans and cornbread ain’t out of style!”

_____________________________________________________

I agree....yummy.

[dforest]

Please DO NOT enlarge that photo anymore than this. LOL

Please

[TommyDale]

[Allegra]

Dude. That’s funny as hell. :-D

[dforest]

ROTFL! At least that one has a waist! She must be another one of those Democrat food stamp recipients!