Midnight grocery runs capture economic desperation. [View All]

[rug]

Once a month, just after midnight, the beeping checkout scanners at a Walmart just off Interstate 95 come alive in a chorus of financial desperation.

Here and at grocery stores across the country, the chimes come just after food stamps and other monthly government benefits drop into the accounts of shoppers who have been rationing things like milk, ground beef and toilet paper and can finally stock up again.

Shoppers mill around the store after 11 p.m., killing time until their accounts are replenished. When midnight strikes, they rush for the checkout counter.

"The kids are sleeping, so we go do what we've gotta do. Money is tight," Martin Young said as he and his wife pushed two carts piled high with ground beef, toilet paper and other items.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101006/ap_on_bi_ge/us_midnight_run