Workers struggle in Hamptons, playground for rich

[Omaha Steve]

X post in Socialist-Progressive

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140712/us--hamptons-have-nots-8fc5322aaa.html

By FRANK ELTMAN

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) — This is a town where people are so rich that a $2 million home can be a handyman's special. A town where the thrift shop is stocked with donations of designer dresses and handbags.

But Southampton, with its privet hedges, pristine beaches and some estates costing tens of millions, also is where 40 percent of children get free or reduced school lunches, where a food pantry serves up to 400 clients a month and where some doctors and nurses share homes owned by the local hospital because they can't afford to buy or rent.

Studies show the wealth gap separating the rich from everyone else is widening, and few places in the country illustrate that as starkly as Long Island's Hamptons — America's summer playground for the haves and have-mores, where even middle-class workers struggle with the high cost of living.


In this photo taken on Friday, July 11, 2014, a local real estate listing for a oceanfront property going for $23.5 million is displayed in Southampton, N.Y. Studies show the gap separating the rich from the working poor has been ever-widening in recent years and few places provide that evidence as starkly as Long Island's Hamptons. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)


"We have a tremendous amount of millionaires who live 3 miles from the food pantry, and they really have no idea that there's a need in this community," said Mary Ann Tupper, who retired last month after 21 years as the executive director of Human Resources of the Hamptons, a charity that assists 6,000 people annually through its food pantry and other services for the working poor.

FULL story at link.

[mountain grammy]

1. I live in a resort community and the income disparity is growing.

Million dollar homes sit empty most of the year and the locals are barely surviving the winter. Our elementary school closed when it was down to 40 students. But I can make $100 cleaning the mansion a few blocks from my house, so it's all good, right?

[NYC_SKP]

2. Interesting topic. Where, for example, do employees of the Ritz Carlton Half Moon Bay live?

Well, I was shopping back in 2006 and I found out where and how some of them lived.

I ended up having to wait and I bought something further south but what I learned while shopping was kind of shocking.

Good post.