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What the U.S. jobless rolls don't tell you

By Tim Jones
Chicago Tribune

NICCO DENUCCIO / KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS William and Creasid Wright are shown with their five children: Billy, Aaron, Nathan, Jared and Robby. After living 13 years in a cramped trailer, the couple built a five-bedroom log cabin — "with no credit," she adds.

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Hundreds of people like Theresa Ware arrive early because they fear the boxes of food stacked in neat rows will be gone by the time they push their rusty grocery carts to the head of the hours-long line. Ware keeps an eye on her watch because she can't afford to be late for work, not even if the reason is to pick up food.

"This is a have-to case for us. It's humiliating," said Ware, 49, who makes $7.50 an hour working the afternoon shift at a nursing home. This recent visit was one of two food pantry stops she and her unemployed husband, Rocky, make every month.

"We shouldn't have to do this," she said.

Theresa and Rocky Ware toil in the ranks of the working poor, a growing category of millions of Americans who play by the rules of the working world and still can't make ends meet.

After tapping friends and family, maxing out their credit cards and sufficiently swallowing their pride, at least 23 million Americans stood in food lines last year — many of them the working poor, according to America's Second Harvest, the Chicago-based hunger relief organization. The surge in food demand is fueled by several forces — job losses, expired unemployment benefits, soaring health-care and housing costs, and the inability of many people to find jobs that match the income and benefits of the jobs they lost.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington think tank, reported recently that 43 million people are living in low-income working families with children. Other government data show the number of people living below the official poverty line grew by more than 3.5 million from 2000 to 2002, to 34.6 million. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that the number of Americans who don't know where their next meal will come from — categorized as "food insecure" — jumped from 31 million to 35 million between 1999 and 2002.

New faces in the line

"The reach of the economic slowdown has really pulled in a lot of folks who never expected to be poor," said Stacy Dean, director of food-stamp policy for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "What you see now is families turning to private relief for what often is a very small amount of help."

"This is not just a function of unemployment. A larger percentage of Americans are working poor, and the numbers have been growing for nine years," said Robert Forney, chief executive officer of America's Second Harvest. "This could be the low-water mark for the economy, but for a whole lot of Americans — 40 million of them — the option of (earning) a living wage and benefits? Forget it."

Food-pantry operators across the nation — urban, suburban and rural — tell similar stories of exploding food demand from families, senior citizens and the fastest-growing segment: the working poor.

Theresa and Rocky Ware have reluctantly joined the receiving lines at food banks. Last year, in the sparsely populated, nine-county region of southeastern Ohio, 9.1 million pounds of food were handed out — that's up from 3.9 million pounds in 2000. In the past three years, the number of households served by food banks has more than tripled, according to Second Harvest of Southeast Ohio.

Even as the national economy shows fitful statistical signs of recovery, the data do not take into account that declining numbers of employers offer health insurance and many new jobs pay the minimum wage, $5.15 an hour.

Danny Palmer, who lives in the Ohio River village of Cheshire, Ohio, lost his $20-an-hour welding job and now works at Wal-Mart for $5.95 an hour. Insurance coverage for him and his wife, Shirley, runs out next month.

'We can't keep up'

Melissa Barringer holds three part-time jobs to augment the income she and her husband, Brian, a laborer, earn to support themselves and their three teenage children. Last year, their combined income was $18,000. "We can't keep up," Melissa Barringer said as her children ate at a soup kitchen in Coolville, Ohio.

Oscar Sanchez shows up every Thursday for bags of canned and dry goods at the Catholic Charities' Latin American Youth Center in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. Sanchez, 52, is a self-employed painter who lost his construction job three years ago. His hourly wage is $7. He has no health insurance.

And in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Mary Williams works as a temp and drives her 1983 Mercury Marquis to jobs that pay $7 to $8 an hour. The work is not steady. Neither she nor her son has health insurance.

All of them tell different stories but have one thing in common: They have jobs and are regulars at food pantries.

The plights of people like the Wares are not reflected in monthly unemployment figures. These Americans fly uneasily beneath the radar of the government's officially recognized economic-distress status, the federal poverty line of $12,490 for a couple and $18,850 for a family of four.

"The official economic numbers often lag behind the real story," said Gregory Acs, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute, a Washington-based research organization.

	KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS Mary Williams of Ferguson, Mo., a single mother, was laid off from her factory job last summer and is still actively seeking work. She has no health insurance for herself or her 13-year-old son.

"Poverty numbers usually tell only part of the story. You can be technically not poor but you still skip bills and go once or twice a week to the food pantry," Acs said, noting that upward adjustments in poverty levels do not account for all the financial pressures facing families.

For example, the share of Americans under age 65 with employer-sponsored health insurance dropped from 70 percent in 1999 to 68 percent in 2002, according to the Urban Institute. Among low-income workers, the percentage dropped from 40 percent to 35 percent.

Some of those who are struggling visit Felipe Ayala, who has been running Chicago's Latin American Youth Center for 32 years. "We used to run out of food at the end of the month. Now we can run out at the end of the first week," Ayala said.

The increasing demand comes from people who are either out of work or, in the case of Oscar Sanchez, don't earn enough to provide a living for themselves.

Nor is Mary Williams particularly hopeful. With three years of college behind her, the 42-year-old former factory worker has not had health insurance since last summer. Williams makes about $400 a month and regularly visits the Salvation Army food pantry in St. Louis. Williams' battered car is starting to break down, and sometimes she has to drive up to an hour, one way, to get to work.

"Most of the time it's a struggle," said Williams, a single parent. "And things aren't looking any better."

The pressure on working families has increased in the past few years as many states have cut back Medicaid coverage in the face of their own budget troubles. Two recent reports show that as many as 1.6 million low-income people have lost publicly funded health coverage because of state budget cuts.

In response, they cobble together an existence by skipping meals, borrowing from friends, moving in with family and cutting prescription pills in half or bypassing dosages altogether. Some ignore bills, which is one reason Ohio, for instance, a state hit hard by the recession, has the highest rate of loan foreclosures in the nation, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

A bureaucratic vise

Many are trapped in a bureaucratic vise: They make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, the government's low-income health insurance program, yet too little to buy health coverage.

The Wares have already turned their home over to their children because they can't afford the property taxes. Medical bills from Rocky's treatments for emphysema are mounting.

"I get bills and I say to hell with it. They can come and throw me in jail," Theresa Ware said as she loaded food into the back seat of her truck.

Although unemployment in Athens County, Ohio, in February was 5.9 percent, about one-third of the county's residents live at or below the federal poverty line. Many of the good jobs are gone as Ohio, like many states, is making the transition from a manufacturing to a service-based economy.

About 200,000 manufacturing jobs have left Ohio since the start of 2001. In February, 14 counties had jobless rates in double digits, up from only three last November. Studies say job growth is in the service sector, led by fast food and retail, positions that rarely pay $10 an hour.

	NICCO DENUCCIO / KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS For Rocky and Theresa Ware of Londonderry, Ohio, the food line "is a have-to case. ... It's humiliating," said Theresa, who makes $7.50 an hour at a nursing home.

Jack Frech, director of the Athens County Department of Human Services, said the working poor "are all playing by the rules, yet they are sacrificed" in an economy that often doesn't provide a living wage.

"People here couldn't tell you where the poor people are, even though they see them every day," Frech said. "These people are invisible. They're doing some of the most difficult jobs in the world and they are doing it for nothing. And we all benefit from it. They keep the price of food and child care down because they're willing to take jobs at sub-poverty wages."

A recent report from the U.S. Conference of Mayors said jobs lost between 2001 and 2003 will be replaced with jobs paying 20 percent less. For some, the drop has been much steeper.

The so-called new poor, like Danny and Shirley Palmer, are puzzled and angered by their situation. Danny Palmer held his job with a power company for 25 years until one day in late November 2002, when he came home for lunch after being told not to return.

"He rattles the bushes but he can't find anything," Shirley Palmer said of her husband, who obtained a union card as a pipe fitter six months ago. He pays monthly dues but has not been called for any jobs. Their monthly mortgage payment is $343.20 and they are drawing down their savings because his Wal-Mart salary doesn't measure up. "It makes me angry," she said.

But such anger is not often heard. People who go through food lines will express their unhappiness with government policies, frequently mentioning the billions of dollars spent to rebuild Iraq. But fiery outbursts are rare. Politics and the presidential race are shoved to the background by the more immediate concerns of food, bills and health care.

Groceries or phone?

The McArthur food line, Creasid Wright said, "is a long-term option" for her family, including her husband, William, and their five children, all boys. She makes $10.55 an hour as a nursing-home aide.

"I got a raise of 15 cents. I would have liked 50," she said. Like many food-line regulars, she knows her hourly wage and monthly bills down to the penny.

Wright, a youthful 36, lives with her husband, William, along U.S. Highway 50, designated the Appalachian Highway. William is a day laborer making $10 an hour. Last year their combined income was about $23,000. In recent years they have hauled junk cars and cut firewood to make money.

After living 13 years in a cramped trailer, Creasid and William built a five-bedroom log cabin — "with no credit," she adds. The trailer's concrete foundation in the front yard is a reminder of how far the Wrights have come. The food line is a reminder of how far they have to go.

She is planning a garden. The television antenna behind their log home picks up three channels. They have no phone.

"I'd rather have groceries than a phone," she said.

While Medicaid covers the children's health care, neither parent has health insurance. They take their chances. When William Wright suffered from cellulitis last year, his antibiotics cost $300. "That almost did us in," his wife said.

Creasid Wright said she is not angry because "life has always been tough." She refuses to go to the state welfare office for food stamps because she finds it demeaning. The food line, on the other hand, is a necessity that does not undermine dignity, she said.

"I don't feel ashamed to come here. I don't feel above or below anything," she said.

On this day, Creasid Wright baked a birthday cake for her 9-year-old son, Jared. Then, after a family birthday party, she headed to the nursing home to start her 12-hour shift.

Not everyone is so stoic. Dave, a single parent who did not want his last name reported because two of his three daughters are embarrassed that he goes to the food pantry in Logan, Ohio, north of Athens, called his reliance on charity "humiliating." He borrowed gas from a neighbor's lawn-mower gas can to get to the pantry. Washington, Dave said, cares more about Iraq than about Americans.

"Why isn't anybody alarmed?"

"There's nothing wrong with making people self-sufficient. The problem is there aren't any jobs they can go to to make themselves self-sufficient. They're working, but they're still in poverty," said Dick Stevens, a division director for Hocking-Athens-Perry Community Action in Logan.

"You may have helped the system, but you haven't helped the people. ... It's such an alarming thing to watch unfold before your eyes and get the feeling that nobody sees it.

"Why isn't anybody alarmed? How can this many jobs be replaced by service and minimum-wage jobs?" Stevens asked.

Visits to food pantries in this area of southeast Ohio totaled more than 204,000 last year, up from 130,000 in 2000. Dannie Devol, who helps run the St. James Chapel pantry in Logan, said many people are too proud to go to food banks. Used clothing — shoes, dresses and coats — is draped from hangers or stacked on folding tables at St. James. Phonograph records and paperbacks line the walls, along with toys.

"When this place opened, everything was free, and nothing moved," said Marilyn Sloan, a food-bank coordinator. "When they put a quarter price tag on everything, then they would sell. It's pride and dignity and a sense of ownership that they could pay a quarter. That means a lot."

Some who are regulars at the McArthur pantry, like Vance Reaser, 35, a union carpenter, say it "feels odd" to go through the line.

Reaser was laid off in January 2003 from a job that paid him $25 an hour. His unemployment benefits ran out three months ago. He has worked three months in the past 15 and now shows up at the McArthur food pantry four days a week to help out — and to eat at the soup kitchen.

"I can't afford health insurance for me and my two girls," said Reaser, who is divorced. "There are some things you are supposed to take care of and you can't. In a way it makes you feel like a failure."

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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