Currently in Detroit, says Samuels, "I have approximately 65 to 70 bodies that are ready to be buried. Of those 65 or 70, I can tell you, are 35 or 40 where families have signed off on the bodies and they don't have the funds to bury them." It costs the state - or the county, if the state declines to help - $750 to bury an unclaimed decedent in a potter's grave in Western Wayne County.
Hard Times? Getting Repoed, Foreclosed on? Well one population segment is loving it, the rats. In the U.K. rats are having a party:
As the biggest economic bust in 60 years fostered a boom for rodents, municipalities were called an estimated 700,000 times to deal with infestations in the last 12 months, compared with 650,000 the previous year, said Peter Crowden, chairman of National Pest Technicians Association Ltd.
The rat population has swollen by 13 percent this year to more than 50 million, one for every person living in England, according to an industry consensus cited by Crowden. Rats and mice are capable of spreading more than 35 diseases, including a fever inducing nausea and muscle aches passed to humans either via a bite or the rodent’s urine.
Well, America has yet another thing to be proud of, a record number of Americans are on food stamps.
Food stamps, the main U.S. antihunger program which helps the needy buy food, set a record in September as more than 31.5 million Americans used the program -- up 17 percent from a year ago.
Poverty is spreading and may be re-clustering in suburbs, where a majority of America's metropolitan poor now live.
The full report (pdf), The Enduring Challenge of Poverty in America, is about as vague as the Reuters article.
The only cause hinted at is the loss of manufacturing jobs, causing wide spread poverty.
Why poverty is re-clustering into the suburbs is not spelled out. The report does show immigration is increasing not only in urban and the suburbs, but also rural areas where extreme poverty is increasing proportionately and mentioned low skilled or unskilled workers from Latin America.
Ya know if the facts say something researchers should fess up and stop playing political correctness.
Federal Reserve data show that in relative terms, that debt is getting more expensive. In 1989 households earning $30,000 or less a year paid an average annual interest rate on auto loans that was 16.8% higher than what households earning more than $90,000 a year paid. By 2004 the discrepancy had soared to 56.1%. Roughly the same thing happened with mortgage loans: a leap from a 6.4% gap to one of 25.5%. "It's not only that the poor are paying more; the poor are paying a lot more," says Sheila C. Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp
It's a very good article, going into depth on just how badly those who are scraping buy are even further victimized by these various credit agencies.
No longer able to turn their homes for cash, Americans are increasingly using plastic to meet their basic living expenses. But many can't afford to pay the bills
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