Across the river in New Jersey, the Salvation Army in Perth Amboy also reports three times the number of people stopping by for food baskets over the past several months. A spokesperson said the center is "seeing more people who are out of work" due to the recession. Officials at St. James AME church in Newark say the number of people seeking food has doubled in recent weeks.

And the number of homeless families seeking shelter in New York City has hit an all-time high, with applications for shelter up 30 percent. In July, some 6,252 families with 12,000 children sought residence in temporary homeless shelters, with many shuffled from one shelter to another on a daily basis by city officials or left to sleep on benches and floors at the Emergency Assistance Unit. Homeless advocates say landlords in many large cities are simply rejecting the federally subsidized Section 8 vouchers because they can make more money charging high rents.

The increasing numbers of working people who have to turn to charity in order to make ends meet is a graphic indication of the impact of massive layoffs triggered by the capitalist economic downturn. Industrial production fell in October for the 13th consecutive month, the longest such decline since the Great Depression. Output from U.S. factories, mines, and utilities dropped by 1.1 percent on top of a 1 percent decline in September. The official unemployment rate shot up to 5.4 percent, the highest level in five years, sending the ranks of the unemployed to 7.7 million, up from 7 million in one month. The number of people working part-time jobs soared from 1.1 million to 4.5 million in just 60 days.

Compounding the layoffs is the impact of widespread cuts in welfare, food stamps, unemployment benefits, and other federal and state government programs. The five-year lifetime limit imposed under the Clinton administration for any individual to receive welfare is rapidly approaching, threatening the ability of tens of thousands of working families in the state who rely on this benefit to meet their basic food, rent, and transportation costs.

In his campaign to end "welfare as we know it," President William Clinton won bipartisan backing in 1996 for eliminating the federally funded entitlement Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and limited access to other social benefits.

By the end of the year some 38,800 families in New York are due to be cut off from federal aid, joining at least 120,000 who have already lost benefits nationally. Thirty-two percent of those slated to lose their benefits in New York are families where at least one parent is currently employed.

New York state and city officials have said that those no longer eligible for federal aid will be able to apply for a state-financed program in the spring of 2002, when it starts up. Commenting on a recently approved three-month extension in food stamps benefits for families whose aid was already cut, the governor of New York, George Pataki, said that the extension "could help working families to achieve independence."

Angel Martinez, visiting a food pantry with her family, didn't quite see it that way. "Somehow I've got to find a way to skimp on the food to pay the light bill," he told a New York Times reporter. "None of those welfare bureaucrats' kids is going to go hungry and cry themselves to sleep. My kids are," he added.

A survey release in mid-November by America's Second Harvest, the country's largest organization of emergency food providers, found that nearly half of the 32,000 individuals surveyed choose between paying utilities and buying food, and more than 35 percent decide to either buy food or pay their mortgage. The study also found that 23.3 million people in the United States sought and received emergency food assistance this year, an increase of nearly 2 million since 1997.  
 
Official coldheartedness
Despite a number of welfare advocate organizations voicing concern over the fate of families facing the five-year limit, New York City officials have insisted they are committed to carry through the cuts.

"We now have a welfare system in which time limits will be hitting in a majority of states at precisely the time when the labor markets are the weakest and when families are in the most trouble," said Deepak Bhargava, of the National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support, a coalition of social service organizations.

In response, New York City welfare commissioner Jason Turner said in a typically coldhearted statement: "Individuals should use the five-year milestone as an important opportunity to reassess their lives and their progress towards achieving self-sufficiency."

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert voiced apprehensions about the social conflict possible as working people face the combination of an economic downturn and lack of programs previously available.

"Government officials who expect poor and working families to sort of roll over and quietly accept their dismal economic fate may get surprised this time around," Herbert wrote in a November 19 piece. "There is a growing sense of militancy among struggling families in the United States. Pushing people to the limits will produce that."

He added: "The cynicism that resulted in millionaire senators cheering the passage of welfare reform is now being confronted by the cold reality of a take-no-prisoners recession that threatens to leave millions of American families jobless, and all but helpless."

Herbert points out that "unemployment insurance, which was established to ease the pain of temporary joblessness, covers less than 40 percent of the people who are out of work...; the food stamp program, which was supposed to slam the door on hunger in the world's greatest nation (and which once served 90 percent of eligible families), now serves just 60 percent of poverty-stricken folks who qualify for help"; and "between now and next July we'll see welfare benefits exhausted for large numbers of families in at least 26 states."  
 
Loophole in Medicaid bureaucracy
In what some have called the biggest one-time enrollment increase in Medicaid history, thousands of working people are taking advantage of a temporary program designed to speed up applications for assistance for people who lost their jobs and income because of the September 11 attack.

Instead of the bureaucratic delays, eight-page forms, and extensive documentation workers usually face when seeking Medicaid coverage, the emergency program allows enrollment for four months on the spot to those who have a Social Security number and photo ID, and fill out a one-page document swearing they meet the income criteria.

Government officials have not publicized the program and they say it was forced on them because their computer system was damaged September 11. Somehow the word spread, and more than 75,000 people in New York City got themselves signed up over the last six weeks. Welfare advocates estimate that about 1 million of some 3 million eligible families in New York are kept out of the system because of the normal bureaucratic practices.
 
 
Related article:
Workers face economic crisis  
 
 
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