NYT:In Tale of Two Families, a Chasm Between Haves and Have-Nots

[UpInArms]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05moving.html?hp&ex=1125979200&en=ce7851b40d2bdd54&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Published: September 5, 2005

excerpt:

Mrs. Porretto's four-car caravan crammed with a lifetime of photo albums, a few changes of clothes and coolers of drinks pulled up to a yellow house with a wide front porch that she had just rented for $600 in the humble hamlet of Arnaudville, La.

<snip>

Outside the New Orleans airport here, Ms. Jackson's four sickly and hungry children, ages 1, 3, 5 and 7, were sprawled on a skycap's cart as she slogged through the sweaty, snail-like line, the baby atop a blue plastic bin filled with what they had scrounged from strangers.

<snip>

The more than 100 members of Mrs. Porretto's extended family have cars that carried them out last Sunday morning, well before the hurricane hit.

Ms. Jackson, who does not know how to drive, escaped on foot only after the floodwaters started filling her apartment on Tuesday, walking first to a bridge, then to the squalid Superdome.

<snip>

John Edwards, the former senator whose presidential primary campaign last year was based on the theme that America is a country torn in two by race and class, sent an e-mail to supporters last week, saying that the hurricane's destruction exposed "a harsher example of two Americas."

...more...

[Ravenseye]

1. How would you handle it?

My heart goes out to these people. What would you do if you had less than 20 dollars in your bank account, lost your job, your home, most of your things and now were standing on some piece of tarmac somewhere with just the clothes on your back and twenty dollars. No home to go to. No family to go to. All your friends are either in the same perdicament or you don't know where they are...Your children next to you looking at you with that wide eyed scared look that kids get.

What would you do?

[iamjoy]

2. I Can't Even Imagine

how awful and frightening it is.

I do so wish John Edwards were our President or Vice President now.
My only concern is that he is just so congenial and a little outrage over this wouldn't be out of line.

How do we fight poverty though? I mean, what can we as individuals do?

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

3. God forgive me, but I wonder who the white family voted for

last November?

This is heartbreaking and absolutely sickening.

[Javaman]

4. This is the dawning of the age of aquarious....

self examination can be a bitch. This is what is happening below the surface on a national level. We commit wars of opportunity that kill thousands for greedy reasons. We don't help our own when they are in trouble and let them die because the gov't tries to help them on the cheap. What will be next? Karma is a bitch. Either we learn and grow or we die and perish.

[Miss Chybil]

5. This is not just an American phenomenon. Rich people throughout

the world and through all time have faired better than poor people. That's the advantage to being rich, or in this country, to at least having good credit. I think the problem lies in the fact no-one has been willing to admit this kind of poverty exists in the U.S.. BUT, it's not just those who were living in abject poverty who were affected the hardest by this. My husband and I own our home and a couple of cars. We have a bank account. We're not on welfare, but we live very much paycheck to paycheck. We probably would not have been able to escape that disaster ourselves,(I know we couldn't have just rented a house on the fly, nor would we have been able to afford a hotel room without help), and I consider us pretty much average. Maybe, we're below average? I don't know.

[UpInArms]

6. I would think that you are among those considered "average" or

above average. The nation's overall savings rate was less than zero last month - people have no way to save and many are spending more than they make.

I do recall a time in my own life that I always had at least 6 months of wages saved for hard times. Those days are long gone as hard times have been a part of my personal world for the past 4 to 5 years.

Here's that article on the savings rate

http://www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/business/article/0,1375,VCS_128_4049478,00.html

(free registration or try www.bugmenot.com)

National savings falls to all-time low

WASHINGTON -- Americans' savings rate fell to an all-time low in July while manufacturing showed signs of slowing in August, worrisome economic news amid uncertainty over how much of Hurricane Katrina will hit the economy.

A group of economic reports on Thursday showed the economy was buffeted by high oil prices even before Katrina shut down production along the Gulf of Mexico earlier this week and sent the price of gasoline and other products soaring.

<snip>

However, incomes rose by just 0.3 percent, not enough to cover the increased spending. As a result, the savings rate fell into negative territory at minus 0.6 percent, the lowest level on record.

That negative 0.6 percent meant that Americans did not have enough left over after paying their taxes to cover all of their spending in July.

As a result, they dipped into savings stored up in prior months to cover the shortfall.

...more...

[kineneb]

7. I would have had to stay

checkbook has $5 in it right now. No savings, not allowed to build up any assets or we loose MediCal/CMSP, or Hubby loses medical care. Screwed coming and going. Do have car, house and garden. We are trying to keep that. Gad, I feel so sorry for the folks in LA, Miss. and Alabama. I wish I could send them something, but I need to keep it for us here.