Posted on 12/27/2011 2:12:04 PM PST by SeekAndFind
For years, the food pantry in Crystal Lake, Ill., a bedroom community 50 miles west of Chicago, has catered to the suburban areas’ poor, homeless and unemployed. But Cate Williams, the head of the pantry, has noticed a striking change in the makeup of the needy in the past year or two. Some families that once pulled down six-figure incomes and drove flashy cars are now turning to the pantry for help. A few of them donated food and money to the pantry before their luck soured, according to Williams.
“People will shyly say to me, ‘You know, I used to give money and food to you guys. Now I need your help,’” Williams told The Fiscal Times last week. “Most of the folks we see now are people who never took a handout before. They were comfortable, able to feed themselves, to keep gas in the car, and keep a nice roof over their head. ”
Suburbia always had its share of low-income families and the poor, but the sharp surge in suburban poverty is beginning to grab the attention of demographers, government officials and social service advocates.
The past decade has marked the most significant rise in poverty in modern times. One in six people in the U.S. are poor, according to the latest census data, compared to one-in-ten Americans in 2004. This surge in the percentage of the poor is fueling concerns about a growing disparity between the rich and poor -- the 99 percent versus the 1 percent in the parlance of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
But contrary to stereotypes that the worst of poverty is centered in urban areas or isolated rural areas and Appalachia, the suburbs have been hit hardest in recent years, an analysis of census data reveals. “If you take a drive through the suburbs and look at the strip mall vacancies, the ‘For Sale’ signs, and the growing lines at unemployment offices and social services providers, you’d have to be blind not to see the economic crisis is hitting home in a way these areas have never experienced,” said Donna Cooper, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank.
In the wake of the Great Recession, poverty rolls are rising at a more rapid pace in the suburbs than in cities or rural communities. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of suburban households below the poverty line increased by 53 percent, compared to a 23 percent increase in poor households in urban areas, according to a Brookings Institution analysis of census data.
Last year, there were 2.7 million more suburban households below the federal poverty level than urban households, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was the first time on record that America’s cities didn’t contain the highest absolute number of households living in poverty. There are many reasons for the dramatic turnabout in the geographic profile of poverty.
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The intentional destruction of the middle class continues
Re-distribution of wealth so that inner-city dwellers can continue their 4th generation of welfare-dependency, 75%+ out-of-wedlock birthrates, and gang/drug lifestyles are taking their toll on those who want to earn their own way, work for a living, and provide for their OWN families.
It will come down to a Civil War II, and it won't be pretty, but those who understand WHY the second Amendment is there will be okay.
I hope you don't believe this to be a recent occurrence or that fault can be ascribed to one party.
The "Progressives" have been working on this for over 100 years.
And, between the Free Trade/Off-shoring movement....and the "Housing Bubble" deflation, they may have hit their sweet spot.
The driveby twits have it all ready to go, Newt-Towns, Romneyburgs, Perryvilles, etc.
In Obamaspeak, it’s called “fairness”. He’s leveling the playing field.
The govt is squeezing the hell out of little towns like mine. They really don’t like us out here being free to interfere with their “greenways”.
Forgive me if I don’t have a ton of sympathy for these people. They spent the last decade living the high life and living well beyond their means. They bought big homes, flashy cars, had opulent vacations, and paid for it all with borrowed money. Meanwhile my family lived in a modest home, we drove an older car that was paid for, we paid cash for what we needed, and put away money, food, and necessities against a rainy day and the in-crowd derided us as ‘cultish’ and as ‘paranoid. As if the good times and the gravy train would never stop.
And then it did.
So now it is hard times and my family is doing pretty good. We bought a fantastic ranch and home for less than 20% of what it cost to build a few years back. We own it outright while the people who built it are now living in an apartment in Denver. The pantry is full, so is the gun safe, and we’re doing just fine.
Call us cultish and paranoid if you want, we’re doing better than the proverbial Joneses we’re supposed to be keeping up with.
Dave Ramsey? Is that you?
“This surge in the percentage of the poor is fueling concerns about a growing disparity between the rich and poor — the 99 percent versus the 1 percent in the parlance of the Occupy Wall Street movement.”
Poor Michelle. Nobody told her that she’s a nitwit before she scribbled her 50 IQ screed. Now the world knows - Michelle is a clod! But that’s to be expected from female affirmative action hires.
Had this knuckle-dragging bimbo looked at her own story, the part where she scribbles this: “One in six people in the U.S. are poor, according to the latest census data, compared to one-in-ten Americans in 2004.”
Her pea-brain might have made a connection and wrote of differences between the Bush presidency and the obuma train disaster.
This is what Obammy calls “progress.” Soon, we will all acheive equal poverty in outcome (except for the internationalists, technocrats and their assistants) and then Utopia will arrive. 47% of Americans say they are happy with the job the Kenyan is doing. So I guess we are headed to a future of happy third world status.
Someone said that the election of Obama was an IQ test for the American people and they failed. Half of us seem committed to that state of being as long as the techonocrats tell the stupid that they are “smart” for seeking one another’s poverty and enslavement.
Please try to be charitable. Most people do not have what it takes to go against the grain. Did you ever ask yourself why the bulk of the population was being intentionally misled?
Many of the gullible are the same barking seals who show up for Frank Luntz focus groups, eagerly twiddling knobs every time they hear their favorite buzzword.
Their understanding of cause-and-effect is nil, apparently.
Their low density housing consumes resources and harms the environment in a manner that the Left cannot easily manage or coerce. Impoverish them and they will either move into high density government approved housing or become clients for scraps which the Leftist managers can throw them. Maybe both.
>>It will come down to a Civil War II, and it won’t be pretty, but those who understand WHY the second Amendment is there will be okay.
Tough talk, but not going to happen. When they try to confiscate the guns, people will simply give them up and roll over, with very, very few exceptions (maybe you are the exception?)
How else can you explain things like a trailer park in Indiana where more than 50% of the residents are registered sex offenders, and nobody has ‘taken care of the problem’. Everybody is macho on the internet, the reality is far, far from that.
Near my neighborhood is a Goodwill. I never noticed such a nearly full parking lot as just prior to this Christmas. I concluded times are now more difficult than I had understood. Maybe it was those 180 dollar jordan sneakers.
This situation can only be relieved by higher taxes.
The peons will continue to be bred by the government for their vote.
We moved here in the semi-boonies six years ago and inherited the old community foodbank phone number.
Been getting enough calls lately that we found out the new number to pass on to our now frequent callers.
I have been seeing you on more threads recently and you are nailing what I am thinking...
Kudo’s.
Mike
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