Greensboro Guilford County NC working poor, Labor Day carries a different meaning, Unemployment lingering at 9 percent or higher, Part time jobs and no health care

“Over the last six months, of the net job creation, 97 percent of that is part-time work,”…Keith Hall, former BLS chief

“However … health insurance rates and benefit coverage plan costs have continued to increase. As a result of those increases, county employees have experienced a pay decrease that has grown larger each year.”…Guilford County Interim Manager Sharisse Fuller

“If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.”…Barack Obama

A good article from the front top page of the Greensboro News Record September 2, 2013.

“For the working poor, Labor Day carries a different meaning”

“After years of area unemployment lingering at 9 percent or higher, Labor Day is a time of appreciation for those who have held on to a job.

But for many of Greensboro’s employed, a job hasn’t been enough to lift them to economic stability.

The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture keeps data on “food insecurity” — essentially, when a family has faced significant periods where it didn’t have enough to eat.

According to a report by Feeding America based on the agriculture department’s data in addition to that of the U.S. Census Bureau, 33 percent of the 95,480 people in Guilford County who are food insecure have incomes too high to qualify for federal nutrition programs commonly known as food stamps.

Yes, it’s true. You can be food insecure, but ineligible for food stamps.”

“In the Triad, a number of studies have ranked the area among the nation’s worst in terms of poverty and food hardship.”

““You have the people that were barely making it with 40 hours. Now, they’re below 30 hours and have the same household bills,” Sturdivant said. “And at the end of the day, if they go out and get another part-time job, they still won’t have insurance.””

Read more:

http://www.news-record.com/news/local_news/article_6078cd82-11cc-11e3-9e01-0019bb30f31a.html