Goes to Reading, Pa., which most of us around here only know of as an exit on the way to Philly:
The exhausted mothers who come to the Second Street Learning Center here — a day care provider for mostly low-income families — speak of low wages, hard jobs and an economy gone bad.
Ashley Kelleher supports her family on the $900 a month she earns as a waitress at an International House of Pancakes. Louri Williams packs cakes and pies all night for $8 an hour, takes morning classes, and picks up her children in the afternoon. Teresa Santiago takes complaints from building supply customers for $10 an hour, not enough to cover her $1,900 in monthly bills.
These are common stories in Reading, a struggling city of 88,000 that has earned the unwelcome distinction of having the largest share of its residents living in poverty, barely edging out Flint, Mich., according to new Census Bureau data. The count includes only cities with populations of 65,000 or more, and has a margin of error that makes it difficult to declare a winner — or, perhaps more to the point, a loser.
Reading began the last decade at No. 32. But it broke into the top 10 in 2007, joining other places known for their high rates of poverty like Flint, Camden, N.J., and Brownsville, Tex., according to an analysis of the data for The New York Times by Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College.
Now it is No. 1, a ranking that the mothers at the day care center here say does not surprise them, given their first-hand knowledge of poverty-line wages, which for a parent and two children is now $18,530.
The city had been limping for most of the past decade, since the plants that sustained it — including Lucent Technologies and the Dana Corporation, a car parts manufacturer — withered. But the past few years delivered more closings and layoffs, sending the city’s poverty rate up to 41.3 percent.
And of course, they keep electing Republicans. He’s a “moderate” by GOP standards, but that means nothing these days.
JPL
Yesterday MSNBC online highlighted the plight of those earning just above minimum wage. They linked to a game
http://www.playspent.org/
I had to give my dog up and still didn’t have enough money to live. The only way you can do it is if you didn’t have to pay rent.
also, too ..if someone says to me they want to do away with the minimum wage.. I’m not sure what I’ll do.
soonergrunt
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. H.L. Mencken
Linda Featheringill
Sigh. Reality sucks for lots of people.
Linda Featheringill
@JPL:
I am so sorry you had to give up your puppy, your friend.
Damn.
beltane
I once worked as an assistant director/grant-writer for a childcare center like this, basically poor women caring for the children of other poor women. The only reason the parents didn’t vote Republican is that they didn’t vote at all. The despair that comes with this combination of hard work and low wages tends to preclude any interest in politics.
It was the most depressing job I ever had, far more disturbing than being the habeas corpus clerk at a Federal appeals court. The kids were adorable but with no future, and the parents worked their asses off with no hope of ever having anything to show for it.
beltane
@JPL: Not sure of what to do? Tell them there are plenty of people that could do their jobs for a fraction of the pay. If low-wage workers are overpaid, then the wages of rich assholes are doubly ripe for reduction.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
I have it on good authority (the Making Excuses For Authority thread) that they vote Republican because smelly hippies are holding drum circles.
Stop ruining America, hippies!
SP
Aren’t they also known for their radon?
WaterGirl
@JPL: I’m hoping you had to give up your fictional puppy. I clicked the link – and ran out of money on day 19*.
What a great website. Depressing, but great. *What got me, I think, is that I talked to the people who were trying to organize the union, and I got (fictionally) fired. It was only an on-line experience, but it really helps to see how good people cannot catch a break. Scary.
Zifnab
Who the hell ran against him? I’m sorry, but this is exactly the kind of politics I’ve grown up with. You’ve got your red states and your blue states. Red States gerrymander the districts and draw lines favorable to their candidates. Blue States pick up their seats and simply don’t try for any more.
You’ve got a handful of battleground states that help swing the House or Senate, but beyond that…
When was the last time the DCCC tried to win this seat? When was the last time the Pennsylvania Democrats took it seriously? When was the last time a grassroots group tried to organize the voters? Tell me that. Then get back to me with your “How could they all keep voting Republican?!” shocked faces.
Martin
“Lucent shut down the plant. Maybe Jesus will open up a new one.”
One invisible hand vanishes, another arrives, and a voting pattern is established.
cathyx
I know it’s not mentioned, but what about support money from the children’s father? I wouldn’t be surprised if he isn’t in the picture. Where is he and why is she raising them by herself?
singfoom
Hmm, maybe the whole idea of the minimum wage should be removed and replaced with a living wage that takes into account regional and local differences in pricing?
Fuck, it sucks for those people. I’m sure many people who work for minimum wage work harder than CEOs that make ridiculous sums per hour and break their bodies doing so.
JPL
@WaterGirl: What’s sad about the experiment, is that it hurt me to give up the “fictional” dog. Some folks qualify for food stamps, medicare and housing but the same assholes, (Bachmann) who want to do away with minimum wages also want to do away with programs that help the poor.
The several times I played the game there was no child care costs which has to be equal to housing.
wrb
@singfoom:
Why not a high minimum wage that is flat, so that people move to where the living is best for the dollar, and certain regions do not receive preferential treatment, which treatment would further radicalize those thought deserving only a lesser wage?
sixers
Has little to do with the GOP. The whole region is depressed. Maybe get off at the exit next time and then comment.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
hmm something must be missing from the stories but know from my family in Pittsburgh an $8 an hour job, while not great, an’t bad. like the lady $1900 a month cost of living, in Pennsylvania? Did the rents go SF Bay Area on them during the bubble?
Spaghetti Lee
@Zifnab:
This. Also, keep in mind that Reading in particular, as well as much of Pennsylvania, is gerrymandered out the wazoo. The urban parts of York, Lancaster, and Reading are spread out across 4 districts. Combine them into one and things might be different.
JPL
What infuriates me is that unions are bad but the former CEO of Home Depot and was forced out received 135-150 million for fucking up a company. He had a contract. The head of human resources was forced out and received 50 million of his lack of work. He had a contract.
Why are union contracts bad and CEO’s rewarded for incompetence?
Linda Featheringill
@cathyx:
Are you talking about the way things should be or the way they are?
In defense of the guys, high unemployment doesn’t help.
But most of the time, I think the guys just shrug it all off and go their merry way.
JPL
@cathyx: He could be raising the children. My game didn’t ask gender. Just saying but I did think about that.
WaterGirl
@JPL: It’s a good thing I wasn’t prompted with that option, since I just lost my sweet Bailey two weeks ago. I’ve already cried dozens of times today, I don’t need any help in that direction.
What I found compelling is that on screen after screen in the SPENT scenario, I was forced to choose between two or three things, all of which were either unacceptable or impossible. Life seems really hard lately, and I know so many people have it tougher than I do.
Edit: after posting my comment, I returned to reading comments on this thread. I saw your “what infuriates me is that…” and my first thought was that there isn’t enough time in the day to list all the things that infuriate me lately. I don’t recall who linked to something about learned helplessness on an earlier thread today, but it’s true. I must have shaken my head a dozen times reading just one page of headlines. It’s all just so wrong.
MikeJ
@Zifnab:
In 2010 it was a targeted seat with a Iraq war vet running for the Dems.
Calouste
Lucent btw is the company that Carly Fiorina ran into the ground (carefully hidden by some creative bookkeeping) before she graduated to HP.
JPL
@Calouste: And I wonder how many hundreds of millions she now has. CEO contracts good..
Union contracts bad.
also, too.. taxes on the job creators are bad..
Jager
My wingnut bro in law thinks 10 bucks an hour is a great job. When you explain to him most hourly jobs aren’t 40 a week anymore, usually 25 or less. He still thinks its a great job.
ItAintEazy
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I’ll take “Medical bills” for $300, Alex.
Cain
@MikeJ:
Wow.. and they still lost, huh? damn..
Cermet
@MikeJ: That explains the lost by the dems – all thugs and their puppet media ass lickers know as a fact that all democratic war vets are fakers and cowards or worse – gay. Hence, only thug chickenharks can be elected as honest ‘fake’ leaders to send children of the poor off to die in war for oil as their own silver spoon up their ass children have better things to do than serve their country.
HRA
There was a time when people I knew would go to Reading to shop at the outlets there. Evidently they must no longer exist.
I once lived in a city about the size of Reading. Party affiliation was never the emphasis for voting on someone. It was how familiar you were with the candidate.
Having once been in dire straits financially with a family to support, I don’t find it meaningful for me to assume the whys a person cannot or can hardly cope with the expenses of living day to day. Struggling to maintain your living is hard enough without being subjected to harsh criticism.
SiubhanDuinne
Hmmm, and another comment just vanishes into the FYWP ether. Is there anything we can do about this phenomenon besides complain loudly? Not that there’s anything wrong with that . . . .
Zifnab
@MikeJ: Well, he just earned himself $20, and I wish him luck in 2012.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Most of us only know it as a railroad on Monopoly.
R. Porrofatto
But Wall St. is really struggling to get by, too. It said so in the NY Times today. Key paragraph:
SiubhanDuinne
@R. Porrofatto:
Time for The Times to devote another Style section to numerous articles on the heartbreak of having to put off redecorating the Hamptons cottage for another year, or forcing the chauffeur to pull double duty as a butler.
Svensker
@JPL:
Shut up, that’s why.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Zifnab: Are you talking about State legislature seats? Because York Co is all PA-19, along with some of Adams. If you want to see gerrymander (Congressional) take a look at Maryland. How is that shit even legal?
Canuckistani Tom
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Railroad
jron
Of course they vote Republican. Obama wants to level the playing field, and if that happens even the illegals will pass them by.
James E. Powell
Maybe they vote Republican because they believe that once in power, they will forcibly deport the immigrants, black people, gays, lesbians, liberals, and hippies and America will be America again.
More seriously, it isn’t like the Democratic Party has been pounding a message of ‘we are on your side and the Republicans are not!’ Local issues aside, the Democrats haven’t run as the party of working people for a long, long time.
smintheus
I live about an hour from Reading and used to commute through it to Lancaster. It is a sad, broken-down city.
Person of Choler
Odd that, with all of the upheaval in world politics and global economics in the last years, poverty in Reading, PA is caused by the state’s Republicans.
Also odd, that equally severe poverty in Flint, MI, can exist with Democrats in office in that state.
This is perhaps a confirmation of parallel universes. Next thing you know, careful experiments might suggest that neutrinos could travel faster than photons.
Dr. Squid
@Zifnab: This seat? I went to college there, and it’s a pretty reliably Democratic city. Which is why the GOP divided it into three different districts.
John - A Motley Moose
@Person of Choler: Democrats in office in michigan? Republican governor, attorney general, sec. of state, michigan house, michigan senate, 9-6 edge in house of reps. The only significant offices held by the dems are the two senator seats.
Mnemosyne
@Person of Choler:
It’s almost like the policies of Republican presidents like Ronald Reagan, Bush Sr, and Bush Jr affected the whole country, isn’t it? Not to mention the Republican-lite policies of Clinton.
But that’s not possible, because everyone knows that national economic policy can’t possibly affect local communities by, say, having NAFTA make it more economical for factories to relocate overseas. That would be crazy talk.
gene108
There are a lot of things that cause factories to relocate overseas.
Every foreign – BMW, Hyundai, Toyota, etc. – car company that opens a plant in the USA is effectively outsourcing jobs from their home country.
We aren’t bemoaning the poor German, Korean or Japanese worker, who is out of a job because those companies set up shop here.
I don’t bemoan free trade. The amount of money that went from the developing world to Europe and the USA during the past 200-300 years does need to be corrected. Free trade allows the capital amassed in First World countries to be redirected back to developing nations, so those economies can catch up.
The problem is the U.S. does not and probably will never have a clear industrial / business policy, where we set ourselves up to use the advantages we have to keep businesses here, so everything rotates around labor cost.
Also, too I don’t think most Americans realize, even with a struggling U.S. economy, how much bigger* our economy is than any other country in the world, i.e. the U.S. has a boat load of money sloshing through its borders and is a long way from being broke, if the resources were better allocated.
* The U.S. economy is more than 2.5 times the size of China’s economy and bigger than the 2nd, 3rd and 4th biggest economies combined. That’s right, add up China’s, Germany’s and Japan’s GDP’s and the U.S.’s GDP is bigger.
Just thought I’d throw this in as a parting thought, despite the decline of manufacturing jobs in the U.S., the U.S. manufacturing sector is larger than any other country’s manufacturing sector, though China is rapidly catching up and may surpass us soon. Of course, if our factories were running at full capacity, we’d pass China again.
I think that’s some perspective on how large our manufacturing sector was compared to the rest of the world, post World War 2.
Howard
Gene, if those USA factories of foreign car firms were then exporting back to Germany or Korea, that would be parallel to US offshoring to China etc. But those US factories are predominantly intended production for US consumption.
Also, they were not set up out of the bounty of free trade. Just about the opposite. The government took steps to obligate foreign automakers to start setting up factories in the US or face trade restrictions.
El Cid
@gene108: Of course, there’s no such thing as “free trade agreements”; as 3rd world residents themselves are aware, there are just different trade agreements which favor different sets of elites.
Often the strongest opposition to some particular “free” trade agreement is found among the people of the 3rd world nation it’s supposed to favor.
For example, majorities of Mexicans when polled back a repeal of NAFTA.
Of course, when the formerly protected markets of basic agricultural crops such as beans and corn and powdered milk and such are forced open to favor US-subsidized (and in any case grandly accumulated super-rich) agribusiness exports due to the last chapter of NAFTA coming into play, it’s millions of Mexican indigenous farmers who lose their subsistence & small trade livelihood.
This does not result in a redistribution of the wealth from US elites to the Mexican people, but from Mexican elites to US elites and on occasion vice-versa.
Trade agreements are trade agreements; some designs could favor beneficial development of ordinary people in the various participating nations. Of course, when it comes to economies not enjoying the power, historically favorable trade policies, and state-backed corporate development like South Korea enjoys, it takes really strong intervention by the 3rd world government in question to deal with the social consequences of more trade agreements which favor investors at the cost of all others.
There’s quite a lot of opposition among Colombia’s working classes (no one gives a shit about the rural areas’ lives or opinions, because fuck the peasants and their narco-paramilitary torturers and their millions displaced primarily from the aforementioned government allies) to the US-Colombia FTA.
biff diggerence
As a lifelong Reading resident, I can attest to the poverty the city is buried under.
Of course, the PA Sixth is the most wretchedly gerrymandered district in the Commonwealth. Berks County actually consists of pieces of FOUR House Districts.
I haven’t had any real representation in the House in two decades.
The rotten bastard Gerlach is a carpetbagger from Allegheny County, who sends out shiny paper questionnaires on repealing the Estate Tax, and does local paper pieces about helping the Spa King of Exeter Township cheat on his Federal taxes.
A sick situation.
gene108
@El Cid:
My sample size is mostly India, where free trade has helped boost the livelihoods of many people and the country as a whole.
On a side note, the U.S. subsidizes its agriculture to the point that our agriculture exports can undercut the price of damn near any other country in the world.
Opening up agriculture trade with the U.S. is a recipe for disaster for any country on the planet.
On a side note, from whatever I’ve read, it just seems that small rural farmers seem to be one of the most on-the-edge populations on the planet. A sudden drought or change in market conditions can push them into ruin. I don’t know how to compensate policy for the most marginally attached people.
I think trade policy usually aims to benefit the majority of people and not specifically those on the edge.
I disagree South Korea’s lack of an open market benefited its people. South Korean products were crap, when they first tried to get into the U.S. market.
Hyundai’s have been around in the U.S. for more than 20 years. Until Hyundai hired an ex-Ford executive to improve their quality about 10 years ago and rolled out the 10 year/100,000 mile warranty, their cars were highly unreliable and suspect by U.S. consumers.
Daewoo and Kia never caught up to Hyundai, in terms of quality.
Getting better practices from overseas has made Korean firms and the products available for Koreans better.
@Howard:
From what I’ve read about BMW moving operations to South Carolina is because of a cost advantage of working in the U.S. I didn’t realize the U.S. was about to impose tariffs. If you have time, could you provide a link.
Link
The SC BMW plant does sort of turn America into China, with regards to being a central point for BMW to export parts and products around the world.
jron
@Howard: Howard & Gene, They are also primarily assembly plants, with the bulk of the parts coming from their home countries and elsewhere.
In many cases, though not all, what that means is that American workers complete the assembly of foreign parts in exchange for much lower tariffs on the vehicles sold here.
And in some cases we re-export, as parts of America are effectively becoming Europe and Japan’s third world.
jonas
@cathyx: The vast majority of the time, the father is 1. himself also unemployed and thus no help as a breadwinner 2. prone to violence and thus not safe around her or the kids or 3. on drugs or in prison 4. just gone.
Myranda
Sadly, this does not surprise me. I live in Berks County, my husband went to school at the Reading Hospital School of Nursing, and even back in the mid-90s, the city was obviously on the way down. They’ve done some redevelopment in an effort to “revitalize the downtown core,” but most of that development has done little to produce jobs that pay a living wage — retail work at sub-minimum is not something you can own a house, or support a family, on anywhere in this state. And, yeah, the whole area is gerrymandered to Hell and back. Gerlach is going to die in that fucking seat.
And, for the record: PA outside the major urban enclaves — and even sometimes inside them — has been in a state of general economic depression for decades. Stagnant wages, ballooning real estate prices, relentlessly spiking health insurance costs, and my charming fellow citizens keep electing deep-red nutbars. My lowly blue vote in this district cannot counteract the neighbors who think that Obama is personally coming for their guns and their money and who proudly spew raw gum Birtherism at school-based student book sales.