Paycheck To Paycheck

6:22 pm EST October 19th, 2007 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments

In the 1990s people felt the economy was doing well. In the Bush administration, the GOP keeps saying the economy is doing hot – but if it were, would they keep having to say that? I don’t think so.

The calculus of living paycheck to paycheck in America is getting harder. What used to last four days might last half that long now. Pay the gas bill, but skip breakfast. Eat less for lunch so the kids can have a gilded age man in top hat healthy dinner.

Across the nation, Americans are increasingly unable to stretch their dollars to the next payday as they juggle higher rent, food and energy bills. It’s starting to affect middle-income working families as well as the poor, and has reached the point of affecting day-to-day calculations of merchants like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 7-Eleven Inc. and Family Dollar Stores Inc.

Food pantries, which distribute foodstuffs to the needy, are reporting severe shortages and reduced government funding at the very time that they are seeing a surge of new people seeking their help.

While economists debate whether the country is headed for a recession, some say the financial stress is already the worst since the last downturn at the start of this decade.

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2 Responses to “Paycheck To Paycheck”

  1. hanuman38 says:
    October 19, 2007 at 10:03 pm

    Thanks to you and the AP for pointing this out once again, Oliver. Krugman has also done an excellent job highlighting this lately. It hits home, too: everyone I know has consistently had to keep tightening their belts for the past 6 years and I, for one, don’t believe it’s because “9/11 changed everything.” We work our tails off, haven’t had a decent vacation in almost a decade, pray we don’t get sick because we can’t afford to, and swear loudly every time we fill our gas tanks. Doesn’t sound like a “hot” economy to me.

    The root issue is how you answer the question: “Who is the economy *for*?” Bush and the GOP obviously believe it’s exclusively for them and their rich cronies– as long as they’re doing OK, the economy is fine. The rest of us can starve (and many did, post-Katrina) and not only do they not care, they don’t even notice.

    Bottom line– if you ain’t rich, you slit your own throat any time you vote Republican.

  2. merlallen says:
    October 20, 2007 at 1:08 am

    Things are so bad around here that I’m looking for a weekend job. I’ll be working year round just to barely make ends meet.
    Is there any way you can make the captcha easier to read? I can barely see the damn thing.
    Why do you hate middle aged white guys? Besides the obvious, that is.
    Goddamnit, guess I’ll keep trying.