Thu, Nov 26 2009
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Published June 25, 2008 06:41 pm - A winter wind blew across the parking lot of the Neighbor to Neighbor Food Pantry next to St. Joseph’s Church in Ashtabula; the six adults lined up at the door turned their faces from the wind, toward the metaphoric concrete wall of the building. POOR BUT WORKING Those low-paying jobs add to county’s poverty By CARL E. FEATHER - Lifestyle Editor - cfeather@starbeacon.com Star Beacon A winter wind blew across the parking lot of the Neighbor to Neighbor Food Pantry next to St. Joseph’s Church in Ashtabula; the six adults lined up at the door turned their faces from the wind, toward the metaphoric concrete wall of the building.
Acustomed to being between the proverbial rock and a hard place, they were downcast and unhappy about having to seek a hand-out. No one was smiling. For some, the Friday morning visit to the food pantry is a monthly appointment. For a 50-some woman wearing a black fleece top and jeans, her graying black hair rising with the wind, it was a new experience. She’d always managed to pay her own way; it wasn’t going to happen this month, however. “Just because I work and get paid doesn’t mean it pays all my bills,” said the woman, who didn’t want to be identified. “They don’t realize that more goes out than comes in. This winter, I don’t know whether to heat the house or put gas in my car.” The woman works 40 hours a week, in a chain retail store. She’s been there six years and earns $7.42 an hour after the 20-cent raise she got in 2007. “Isn’t that a shame,” she says. “Good God, they expect you to live on that.” Do the math, that’s $296 a week, $15,433 a year, IF she works full-time, which she does not. The woman expected to have her hours cut after the Christmas holiday, returning her to part-time status, which carries no benefits. “What do they think we are supposed to do? Everything is going up,” she asks. According the 2006 estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau, 16.7 percent of the individuals, and 11.8 percent of the families, in Ashtabula County were living below the poverty level. Those are the highest rates of any lakeshore county in Ohio, including Cuyahoga County, where the rates are 14.8 and 11.4 percent, respectively. The poor is a growing population, as well. Census figures from 2000 showed 12.1 percent of individuals and 9.2 percent of families in Ashtabula County were at or below the poverty line. Poverty is creeping up in the United States, but at a slower rate than in Ashtabula County. In 2000, the U.S. rate for individuals was 12.4 percent; in 2006, it was 13.3. The county’s 13 food pantries and five soup kitchens are this population’s safety valve: Food is the one commodity the poor can still get free in America. “It’s easier to cheat your belly than it is some of the other things,” says Dianna Bradbury, director of food-bank operations for Ashtabula County. Bradbury backs what individual food pantry coordinators are saying: Demand is up, and the pantries are seeing more and more new faces every month. Many of those faces are of the working poor. “It has changed over the years,” says Bradbury, who comes from an 11-year perspective of the system. “It’s not just someone who comes in here and is on welfare. They do have a job; it might only pay minimum wage, but they do have a job.” 
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