US income gap widens in recession

Income gap widens as poor take hit in recession

Census: Income falls for all groups, but those at bottom feel worst effect

updated 1 hour, 16 minutes ago

WASHINGTON – The recession has hit middle-income and poor families hardest, widening the economic gap between the richest and poorest Americans as rippling job layoffs ravaged household budgets.

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Food is Power

Published on Monday, September 7, 2009 by TruthDig.com

Food Is Power and the Powerful Are Poisoning Us

by Chris Hedges

Our most potent political weapon is food. If we take back our agriculture, if we buy and raise produce locally, we can begin to break the grip of corporations that control a food system as fragile, unsafe and destined for collapse as our financial system. If we continue to allow corporations to determine what we eat, as well as how food is harvested and distributed, then we will become captive to rising prices and shortages and increasingly dependent on cheap, mass-produced food filled with sugar and fat. Food, along with energy, will be the most pressing issue of our age. And if we do not build alternative food networks soon, the social and political ramifications of shortages and hunger will be devastating.

Food is Power and the Powerful is poisoning it

Real Cities in Uneasy Truce with Tent Cities

naked capitalism: Real Cities in Uneasy Truce with Tent Cities

As the economy limps along, with jobs still falling (despite keen efforts to call a turn, and with the figures a bit more dodgy if you look under the hood), more and more overindebted and underemployed citizens are out on the street.

Reports of tent encampments or parking lots with cars that serve as shelter have been an occasional and sad sighting for more than a year. What is new is that some cities, with their shelters at their limits, have decided it is better to provide limited services to these colonies than try to send the occupants away.

From the Wall Street Journal:
Last summer, police responding to complaints about campfires under a highway overpass found dozens of homeless people living on public land along the Cumberland River.

Eviction notices went up — and then were suspended by Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, a Democrat, who said housing for the homeless should be found first.

Article Here

Super Clinic finds super need in Los Angeles

This is one of the most effective health care programs verses nationalized health care I have heard of.

Volunteer Medical workers assists the needy

Super-clinic finds super-need in L.A. region

Remote Area Medical Foundation provides free care with volunteer doctors and dentists for unemployed and poor people at an eight-day event at Inglewood’s Forum arena.

By Bob Pool and Kimi Yoshino
August 12, 2009

A homeless man spent the night camped outside the Forum, hoping to finally get glasses to help him see better. An unemployed grocery clerk waited in desperate need of root canal surgery. A former auto mechanic came with an aching back.

One by one, about 1,500 people made their way through the Inglewood sports arena, where dozens of volunteer doctors, dentists, nurses and other healthcare professionals are providing free medical services this week.

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  Photos: Remote Area Medical

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The Geography of Jobs

This is an amazing map of joblessness……pay attention to the arrow and click it to watch…

The Geography of Jobs

Nightmares Come True for the Neediest

There is more pain ahead for elderly, disabled and poor Californians.

George Skelton, Capitol Journal
June 8, 2009

From Sacramento — Jean called the other day from her desert condo near Palm Springs. She’d been notified that the state was cutting back again on aid for the disabled and she was worried.

Nightmares come true for the Neediest

Large layoffs begin to mount in O.C.

May 18th, 2009, 6:13 am · 4 Comments · posted by Mary Ann Milbourn

Orange County employers have announced nearly 1,100 layoffs in the last few weeks as another wave of job notices have gone out.

The Orange County Register’s 2009 layoff list now tops 8,800 jobs.  The list reflects mostly larger layoffs based on Worker Alignment and Retraining Notices (WARN) filed with the state, company announcements and job cuts independently verified by the Register.

The 1,084 local layoffs tallied in May is somewhat skewed because many of the 580 South Coast Medical Center workers in Laguna Beach who received pink slips may get picked up by Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center, which is acquiring the facility. Mission, however, has not determined which services will be continued at South Coast and how many workers it will need.

There were still several other significant workforce reductions ranging from healthcare to the Costa Mesa seller of retail electricity and natural gas.  Here are the latest major layoffs so far this month:

Large Layoffs in Orange County

In Murrieta, a fading American Dream

A fading American Dream

Hit hard by job losses and foreclosures, the city has seen food pantry traffic quadruple, and there’s even talk of building a shelter.

By David Kelly
April 13, 2009

At this point in life, Linda Juarez expected to have five years of equity in her house, a secure future for her family and a viable stake in the American dream.

California Tent City Residents Required to wear wrist bands

Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

Tent City residents gather as the city of Ontario starts the process of sorting out who may stay and who must leave. The city issued wristbands – blue for Ontario residents, who may stay, orange for people who need to provide more documentation, and white for those who must leave. The aim is to reduce the number of people living there from over 400 to 170.

Ontario Tents City Residents only

Officials begin thinning out the encampment, saying the city can provide space only for those who once lived there and can prove it.

By David Kelly, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 18, 2008

Schwarzenegger Opens California Fairgrounds for a Homeless Tent City

By Michael B. Marois

March 25 (Bloomberg) — California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said a make-shift tent city for the homeless that sprang up in the capital city of Sacramento will be shut down and its residents allowed to stay at the state fairgrounds.

California Fairgrounds for a Homeless group