Poverty will be the New Normal in America

Once prosperous middle-class life in America is rapidly being replaced by the ‘Dark Side’ of subsistence living. 

I need add nothing to the following excerpted articles, except to say that for a full review of what lies ahead for all Americans, everyone should go read what we projected on our New Normal page at www.polestarcomm.com, as the Super-Tsunami “Kondratieff” Long-Waves   continually batter the American and World economies.

Have you warned your company of the near certainty of a devolving American economy for the next several years, caused  by a continually eroding GDP, upward ratcheting inflation, drought impacted economics, disappearing jobs and aggregate demand evaporation?

Has your company calibrated your inventory builds and composition and your Marketing Campaigns for the Roller Coaster ride that we are all in for?  

And, most importantly, have you prepared your company for the economic effects of an exploding 'Bond Bubble' in a just couple years, when the FED's ZIRP is forcefully abandoned and interest rates do skyrocket?    

The Ph.D. Now Comes With Food Stamps

Laura Segall For The Chronicle; May 6, 2012

Melissa Bruninga-Matteau, a medieval-history Ph.D. and adjunct professor who gets food stamps: "I've been able to make enough to live on. Until now."

"I am not a welfare queen," says Melissa Bruninga-Matteau.

That's how she feels compelled to start a conversation about how she, a white woman with a Ph.D. in medieval history and an adjunct professor, came to rely on food stamps and Medicaid. Ms. Bruninga-Matteau, a 43-year-old single mother who teaches two humanities courses at Yavapai College, in Prescott, Ariz., says the stereotype of the people receiving such aid does not reflect reality. Recipients include growing numbers of people like her, the highly educated, whose advanced degrees have not insulated them from financial hardship.

"I find it horrifying that someone who stands in front of college classes and teaches is on welfare," she says.

..."The media gives us this image that people who are on public assistance are dropouts, on drugs or alcohol, and are irresponsible," she says. "I'm not irresponsible. I'm highly educated. I have a whole lot of skills besides knowing about medieval history, and I've had other jobs. I've never made a lot of money, but I've been able to make enough to live on. Until now."

An Overlooked Subgroup

A record number of people are depending on federally financed food assistance. Food-stamp use increased from an average monthly caseload of 17 million in 2000 to 44 million people in 2011, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Web site. Last year, one in six people—almost 50 million Americans, or 15 percent of the population—received food stamps.

…Of the 22 million Americans with master's degrees or higher in 2010, about 360,000 were receiving some kind of public assistance, according to the latest Current Population Survey released by the U.S. Census Bureau in March 2011. In 2010, a total of 44 million people nationally received food stamps or some other form of public aid, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

. . . Nevertheless, the percentage of graduate-degree holders who receive food stamps or some other aid more than doubled between 2007 and 2010.

During that three-year period, the number of people with master's degrees who received food stamps and other aid climbed from 101,682 to 293,029, and the number of people with Ph.D.'s who received assistance rose from 9,776 to 33,655,

…"It's gone beyond the joke of the impoverished grad student to becoming something really dire and urgent," says Ms. Kelsky. "When I was a tenured professor I had no idea that the Ph.D. was a path to food stamps."

...Eliott Stegall, a white, 51-year-old married father of two, teaches two courses each semester in the English department at Northwest Florida State College, in Niceville, Fla. …

Mr. Stegall is a graduate student at Florida State University, where he is finishing his dissertation in film studies…His wife is starting a two-year, online master's degree program in criminology offered by Florida State. They receive food stamps, Medicaid, and aid from the Women, Infants, and Children program (known as WIC).

Mr. Stegall has taught at three colleges for more than 14 years. He says he has taught more than two dozen courses in communications, performing arts, and the humanities and he has watched academic positions in these fields nearly disappear with budget cuts. When he and Ms. Stegall stepped inside the local WIC office in Tallahassee, Fla., where they used to live, with their children in tow, he had to fight shame, a sense of failure, and the notion that he was not supposed to be there. After all, he grew up in a family that valued hard work and knowledge. His father was a pastor and a humanities professor, and his mother was psychology professor.

"The first time we went to the office to apply, I felt like I had arrived from Eastern Europe to Ellis Island," he says. "The place was filled with people from every culture and ethnicity. We all had that same ragged, poor look in our eyes."

…"I tend to look at my experience as a humanist, as someone who is fascinated by human culture," he says. "Maybe it was a way of hiding from the reality in which I found myself. I never thought I'd be among the poor."

Mr. Stegall has supplemented his teaching income by working odd jobs. He painted houses until the housing crisis eliminated clients. He and his wife worked as servers for a catering company until the economic downturn hurt business. And they cleaned condos along Destin beach. They took the children along because day care was too expensive.

"I'm grateful for government assistance. Without it, my family and I would certainly be homeless and destitute," he says. "But living on the dole is excruciatingly embarrassing and a constant reminder that I must have done something terribly wrong along the way to deserve this fate."

As he sat in the WIC office with his family, Mr. Stegall blamed himself. He made a choice, he says, to earn a graduate degree even as he saw the economy collapsing, the humanities under assault, and the academic job market worsening.

"As a man, I felt like I was a failure. I had devoted myself to the world of cerebral activity. I had learned a practical skill that was elitist," he says. "Perhaps I should have been learning a skill that the economy supports."

'Dirty Little Secret'

When asked if they believe that full-time faculty, administrators, and scholarly associations know that adjuncts are receiving government assistance, scores of graduate students and adjuncts who get public benefits gave mixed responses. In an informal questionnaire The Chronicle distributed through AFT Higher Education, the New Faculty Majority, and other groups that represent adjuncts, the aid recipients said that some of those people know, some don't know, some don't want to know, and some seem not to care.

…."It's the dirty little secret of higher education," says Mr. Williams of the New Faculty Majority. "Many administrators are not aware of the whole extent of the problem. But all it takes is for somebody to run the numbers to see that their faculty is eligible for welfare assistance."

…Some leaders of scholarly associations say they are surprised to hear of graduate-degree holders being on public assistance.

James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association, said in an e-mail that he consulted with his staff, and "nobody has ever heard of this among our members or other historians."

…Thirty-nine percent of all welfare recipients are white, 37 percent are black, 17 percent are Hispanic, and 3 percent are Asian, according to data from Aid to Families With Dependent Children. The majority of the dozens of graduate-degree holders on aid who responded to The Chronicle questionnaire are also white.

…Lynn, a 43-year-old adjunct professor at two community colleges in Houston, who is on food stamps and Medicaid and doesn't want to give her surname, says, "People don't expect that white people need assistance," she says. "It's a prevalent attitude. Applying for food stamps is even worse if you're white and need help."

Kisha Hawkins-Sledge, who is 35 and a black single mother of 3-year-old twin boys, earned her master's degree in English last August. She began teaching part-time at Prairie State College, Moraine Valley Community College, and Richard J. Daley College of the City Colleges of Chicago while in graduate school, and says she made enough money to live on until she had children. She lives in Lansing, Ill.

"My household went from one to three. My income was not enough, and so I had to apply for assistance," she says. She now receives food stamps, WIC, Medicaid, and child-care assistance….”

About 3 Million College Degree Holders in New York Are Suffering With Food Crisis

Valuewalk.com; January 13, 2012; By Sheeraz Raza

Through various surveys conducted by the Food Bank for New York City a new report was produced regarding 3-million college educated New Yorkers who have reported difficulties in affording food.

...The percentage of New York City residents with annual household incomes between $50,000 to $74,999, and annual household incomes of $75,000 or more, who reported difficulty affording food increased from 26 percent to 32 percent, and from 13 percent to 16 percent, respectively, between 2010 and 2011.

The Food Bank says that the New Yorkers are purchasing fewer essential items like dairy, meat and fresh fruits and turning to soup kitchens and food stamps to overcome this difficulty...."

 

Food stamp use at military commissaries up sharply in four years

By Seth Robbins; Stars and Stripes; Published: November 15, 2011

Nearly $88 million worth of groceries were purchased using food stamps at military commissaries in 2011, more than double the amount spent in 2008, according to the Defense Commissary Agency Laura Rauch/Stars and Stripes

Laura Rauch/Stars and Stripes

BAUMHOLDER, Germany — Food stamp purchases at military commissaries have nearly tripled during the last four years, according to Defense Commissary Agency figures.

The agency reports that nearly $88 million worth of food stamps were used at commissaries nationwide in 2011, up from $31 million in 2008.

… “I suspect that we are talking about more recently [separated],” she said, “who have gotten out of the military and found out that it’s not so easy to find a job in the civilian sector.”

Nearly 860,000 veterans filed for unemployment benefits last month, of whom more than one-quarter are young veterans, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics….

 “I would be willing to suspect they have been demobilized, they are off active duty, but their civilian job isn’t there anymore,” she said.

…The 2003 study showed that the majority of active-duty servicemembers who qualified for food stamp assistance lived in base housing. Housing is not calculated as part of servicemembers’ income, and many would not have qualified for the program had the cost of housing been included, the study found.

“The fact that some enlisted members and even a few officers received (food stamps) was more a result of larger household sizes and living in government quarters than an indicator of inadequate military compensation,” said Lainez.

large families, said Lainez.

….The steep economic downturn began in the fall of 2008, and the sharpest year-to-year growth in food stamp usage at commissaries was from 2008 to 2009, increasing nearly 70 percent to $53 million.

….During this time, civilian use of food stamps also increased significantly, from about $35 billion to more than $50 billion. In 2010, the Dept. of Agriculture reported there were $65 billion worth of food stamp purchases nationwide.

….John Smith, a spokesman for Operation Homefront, a non-profit organization that provides emergency assistance to military families, said his organization has seen the amount of food assistance it provides to military families double since 2008. . . .”

 Items that can be purchased using food stamps:

-- breads and cereals;

-- fruits and vegetables;

-- meats, fish and poultry; and

-- dairy products.

-- seeds and plants which produce food for the household to eat.

Source: USDA.gov

Chart showing the amount of food stamp purchases, officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, at base commissaries nationwide:

 2008: $31,146,015

2009: $52,954,938

2010: $72,831,952

2011: $87,837,643

Source: the Defense Commissary Agency

Poll: Veterans Looking for Food Help

Wall Street journal; By LANA BORTOLOT; November 10, 2011 

About one in four New York City households with military veterans has trouble putting food on the table, according to a poll commissioned by the nation's largest food bank.

Army veteran Percy Fleming outside St. John's Bread and Life.

Veterans in such households are eating less frequently and choosing to pay other living expenses—rent, utilities, medical care and transportation—over food, which they get more frequently from food pantries and via government assistance, according to the poll by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion….

The survey "paints the picture of what survival looks like," said Margarette Purvis, president and CEO of the Food Bank for New York City, which commissioned the poll. "Survival was supposed to be about getting them home to their families. But their second level of survival is how to be fed and have dignity."

Set to be released publicly on Thursday, the study is the first conducted by a hunger organization to look at the food problems of veterans….The results portray veterans as worried about their ability to buy food, with nearly one in three concerned that they will have to turn to food stamps or government assistance. About one in 10 didn't have enough money to buy food in the past year, the report said.

Of all city households having trouble affording food, 9% were veteran households.

Veterans advocates said military men and women are particularly vulnerable to being unemployed upon their return home.

In the past year, 15% of Iraq War veterans in New York state were unemployed, while in New York City, veterans aged 18 to 34 had a 13% jobless rate, according to federal statistics.

"Anecdotally, our members are reporting these issues," said Matt Gallagher, a former Army captain who served 15 months in Iraq and now works at Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. "Unemployment has been our top legislative priority, but there have been reports of hunger concerns and it's on our radar."

…The survey comes as organizations serving the poor have begun tracking the number of veterans they serve. At St. John's Bread and Life, 22% of those who use the soup kitchen are veterans  …

The River Fund Food Pantry in Richmond Hill, Queens, has seen the number of veterans it serves jump to 17% from 10% in 2009, said the pantry's program director, Otto Starzmann.

…Percy Fleming, a 46-year-old Army veteran who gets food from St. John's Bread and Life, said the pantry is helpful, but veterans need long-term help.

"I think our vets will come home to a lot of issues," Mr. Fleming said. "They are going to come home after seeing all that death and destruction—and they can't find a job."

Christine Quinn, speaker of the New York City Council, said the council would take up an initiative to connect veterans to food organizations….”