We’re Doing a Heckuva Job Helping Those Devastated by the Economic Meltdown
by Karen Dolan and Diana PearceLink to article
This is an excerpt from an article on Alternet. Click on link to read entire piece.
“The levees failed residents of New Orleans when Katrina battered their city. The safety net is failing Americans battered by the most recent Category 5 storm—the “Great Recession” of 2008-2009.
Category 5 storms are catastrophic: communities are ravaged; security is stolen; lives are lost. For millions of Americans, the Great Recession is just such a storm.
Unemployment is in the double digits; poverty and hunger are at record-high levels; foreclosures and homelessness are still climbing. The middle class is shrinking and many blacks, Latinos, single mothers and children are experiencing a full-blown economic depression. With such devastating conditions, our nation once again finds itself unprepared to face the ravages of an unnatural disaster.
Katrina exposed our nation’s inability to respond to the plight of many of our most vulnerable citizens in a time of great need. This recession has exposed our nation’s inability to respond to the profound needs of a growing number of Americans falling precipitously through a badly tattered safety net. …”
Tags: foreclosures, Great Recession, safety net, shrinking middle class, unemployment
December 7th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
There was a safety net? What safety net? Are you talking about welfare? LOL because the benefits received from welfare are even less than what most people would earn from a minimum wage job. For example, when I was going to school I received welfare. My total net was around 120 dollars in food stamps, and 240 dollars in cash assistance. How is that a safety net? Subsidized or section A housing had more than a year wait list. The only thing that actually helped me was Project Independence, which allowed students to receive government waivers for gasoline, and daycare while they went to school. As far as I know the government cut this program years ago. So again I ask, what safety net? Why are taxes increasing, and government programs for the needy shrinking? Someone please answer me this. At least in places like Sweeden where taxes are 55%, at least they get the typical things like roadway care, primary education, and national defense and then on top of that they get welfar, health care, more days off to spend with your family, a free college education, or vocation, free housing, longer maternity leaves for parents (both parents imagine that!)etc etc etc. In some parts of our nation taxes are nearly as high and we get next to nothing.
December 7th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
oh yeah, and the minute you get a job all or most of this assistance is taken away. Even if it’s just a part time minimum wage job.