Chicago-area working-poor families are struggling to afford one of life’s basic needs: food.Read the whole thing!
In a survey of 301 working-poor residents of Cook County by the Greater Chicago Food Depository, 61% said their families had faced financial difficulties in securing food in the past year.
Forty-nine percent of the respondents identified three or more examples of their poor circumstances, including a lack of money to buy groceries, skipping meals to stretch the food they had or simply going hungry.
The study defines the working poor as any individual who has worked at least 20 hours a week for at least 27 weeks in the past year but whose incomes is below $17,871, 175% of the federal poverty level. The areas surveyed within Cook County had populations of at least 15% working poor.
Families are trying to make ends meet amid job losses and soaring food and fuel costs. Twenty-two percent of those responding said they had received food from a pantry while fifty-nine percent said they hadn’t, with many saying they were too ashamed to do so.
Dispatches from Chicago's south side.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Chicago’s working poor struggle to get enough to eat, study shows
From Crain's:
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