I have been looking at this post all day. I think I can do it with my Slow Food blog. This is one of those posts that has no comments only because it's one of those "Hmmm, good idea" posts that you are glad you saw but don't necessarily need to weigh in on. But I wanted it to have a comment, so here it is.

Someone at a recent meeting was talking about how the combination of rising prices, recession, and (probably) inflation is already causing more people locally to need social services - and the odd part is, it's hitting a sector of people who don't "know how to be poor." They haven't had to use the system, or to use skills like comparison shopping, or gone to community suppers, or applied for home heating assistance or school lunch. So that was an interesting wrinkle to think about. I think it's true that when people have limited income, they can be amazingly clever and resourceful about how to get by and even live well. But there's a big difference between smart frugality and poverty, in which basic needs become a struggle.

i wanted to say that i'd like to help, but really this place is my only real public blog.
And recently i have been so chatty.

Then i saw miko's comment in anteprima, and i don't want to respond to it, because i'm afraid it will sound snarky.

Not to you, Miko, but about some of the things people have said about the new poverty.

I actually don't know what people are saying about "the new poverty." I'd be interested to hear it. What we were talking about was actually the drain on local services as a deluge of new people become eligible, and how to educate people about what they're eligible for and how to get it.

Oh, don't get me started. i don't have a broad overview on the whole of everybody, it just bugs me when someone feels so diminished by having to curb their impulse shopping, and the cure is generic brands, and i hate that it's fashionable right now.

i start to worry people all think one way or another until i get the information to back that up or not.
Hearing sometimes unreasonable people talking reasonably about things (politically) where they're reflecting the common sense you knew but were afraid was somehow not common sense any more both reassures me and disturbs me.

I can believe this "the new poverty" stuff. I live in Janesville, Wis., which has a GM plant that will shut down two days before Christmas, and while a retooling hasn't been ruled out, the fiscal situation for GM is grim. About 9000 jobs are going to disappear including suppliers for this plant, which is relatively isolated and had become the oldest operating plant in the GM inventory.

I don't expect Flint-like desperation, but I expect a lot of people to be having trouble making ends meet in the next couple of years, and that's assuming there isn't a huge slowdown that lays off people in other industries.

For my family, times are going to be rough too, because even though we have rental property, my dad has been mismanaging the retirement funds and run up a lot of credit card debt as his dementia symptoms have appeared, and now my Mom may lose her county job at the end of the year. There are two developmentally disabled adult nieces of mine to take care of, and my nephew who barely has a job got his girlfriend preggers.

I think by getting control of the finances now, and my stepping up freelancing or getting an online business operating, we'll be able to survive without loss of the equity in the properties. But I just don't know yet.

i wasn't saying people weren't newly poor, i was talking about the opinions of people who have not been actually effected yet.

i suddenly had a tremendous affect effect brain cloud.
It could have paralyzed me but i just had to blow through it.

Thanks for this. I've registered and blogged today. I'm very lucky and grateful to not be poor.

Eth, I have to agree that I've sensed something close to glee in the reporting and conversation about personal budget-cutting, etc. In one way, I think it's attributable to the sheer novelty of it. We've been living in a culture that's been telling the affluent for a decade or more to consume! consume! consume!, and suggesting that's the road to happiness. Well, a lot of people have noticed that they aren't appreciably happier for all that consuming. So they're kind of excited to try something new, put some structure on their lives, and see if that brings pleasure.

Personally, I think it does - I think the things that make life valuable have never really been about consumer goods and services. But that doesn't take away the very real point that for many people, budget-cutting is still a choice, while others have been living that way for years. And for those people who are newly finding that they will really HAVE to cut their budgets, it means that the existing social safety net is spread thinner. And who's likely to fall through?

Whee. done. Cheesy but done.

Somewhat sadly, this really sums up what i meant, and once again, i'm glad i didn't have to be the one of many to say it. When some people claim to be poor, you wanna show them what poor means without any words, then see if they have anything to say.