The Newly Poor

[flashl]

Financial Armageddon

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 37 million people, or 12.3 percent of the population, were in poverty at the end of 2006. For a family of four, that meant an annual housefold income below $20,614. (as a matter of reference, one person working a 40-hour week and getting paid the current minimum wage, $6.55 per hour, would earn a total of $13,624 over the course of a year).

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Given that the average U.S. household devotes roughly a fifth of total annual expenditures to food and energy, is it any wonder that, as the following report from The Hartford Courant's Alaine Griffin, "Rising Food, Gas Prices Send More To Food Banks," seems to indicate, the ranks of the "newly poor" are growing quickly?

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Patty Dowling is the executive director of The Shoreline Soup Kitchens and Pantries, which provides food to 11 shoreline towns including Old Saybrook, Clinton and others along the Route 9 corridor. She said that since January, more than 5,000 people have registered at the pantry — a 40 percent increase over 2007.

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Dowling describes her new clients as "newly poor" or "people who were making it last year" but fell on hard times because of cost increases for food, gas and utilities. The need becomes even greater when clients become ill, get laid off from their jobs, go through a divorce or lose their homes to foreclosure, food bank officials said.

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From January to June, the United Way of Connecticut's 211 information line received 8,359 calls from people looking for help finding free or affordable food, nearly 2,000 more than in the same period last year, said Malia Sieve, director of community results for the 211 line.

"We're finding that this is not just an issue that is facing low-income families," Sieve said. "It's creeping into the middle class."

This article correlates to an earlier PEW report: Inside the Middle Class: Bad Times Hit the Good Life