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Showing posts with label life broke poor desperate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life broke poor desperate. Show all posts

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Empty Wallets by George Packer July 25, 2011 Read more http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/07/25/110725taco_talk_packer#ixzz1T1faVTvO

In the midst of the debt crisis in Washington, D.C., Danny Hartzell backed a Budget rental truck up to a no-frills apartment building that is on a strip of motels and pawnshops in Tampa, Florida. He had been laid off by a packaging plant during the financial crisis of 2008, had run through his unemployment benefits, and had then taken a part-time job stocking shelves at Target in the middle of the night, for $8.50 an hour. His daughter had developed bone cancer, and he was desperate to make money, but his hours soon dwindled to four or five a week. In April, Hartzell was terminated. His last biweekly paycheck was for a hundred and forty dollars, after taxes. “It’s kind of like I’ve fallen into that non-climbable-out-of rut,” he said. “If you can’t climb out, why not move?”

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