Barely Getting by and Facing a Cold Maine Winter

Source: NY Times

By ERIK ECKHOLM
Published: November 24, 2007

MILBRIDGE, Me. — They have worked since their teens in backbreaking seasonal jobs, extracting resources from the sea and the forest. Their yards are filled with peeling boats and broken lobster traps.

Dolly Jordan, 61, of Milbridge, Me., who has many health problems, lives on a $623 disability check and food stamps. She turns the heat off at night to save fuel.
In sagging wood homes and aged trailers scattered across Washington County, many of Maine’s poorest and oldest shiver too much in the winter, eat far more biscuits and beans than meat and cannot afford the weekly bingo game at the V.F.W. hall.

In this long-depressed “down east” region, where the wild blueberry patches have turned a brilliant crimson, thousands of elderly residents live on crushingly meager incomes. This winter promises to be especially chilling, with fuel oil prices rising and fuel assistance expected to decline. But many assume that others are worse off than themselves and are too proud to ask for assistance, according to groups that run meal programs and provide aid for heating and weatherizing.

“One of our biggest problems is convincing people to take help,” said Eleanor West, director of services for the Washington Hancock Community Agency, a federally chartered nonprofit group. “I tell them, ‘You worked hard all your life and paid taxes and are getting back a little of what you paid in.’”

Over the last half century, Social Security, Medicare and private pensions have lifted most of the nation’s elderly. In 1960, one in three lived below the poverty line; now fewer than one in 10 do. But in Washington County, the poverty rate among those 65 and older is nearly one in five and many more live only a little above the federal subsistence standard in 2007 of $10,200 for a single person and $13,690 for two.
For thousands on fixed incomes, fuel assistance may decline while Social Security checks are scarcely rising.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/us/24maine.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1195909338-cOs53INNWevuIF3MA/tscw

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Shame on America and the Democratic congressional leadership to allow this to happen without one word or comment on the injustice of the current system for SS COLA increases. 2.3% SS COLA for next year is criminal with the result of forcing seniors to chose between being warm and eating. We are sliding backwards and it needs to be stopped. Fuck the ruling class. Hillary wants to keep the cap on SS and solve the "problem" by making life miserable for the poorest, most vulnerable segment of our population. She belongs with the rest of the pukes who have created this tragedy and want to solve it by ignoring it. 20 billion spent on junk yesterday and we can't afford to be fair to our seniors. Merry Christmas, hope everyone stays warm and well fed this holiday season.

"You see, me and Poppy and the rest of the BFEE have been raking in Beaucoup Big-Time Profits from our Oil Crusade, I mean Ameriker's War on Terra, in the Middle East. So we really don't give a Flying Fig about the cost of home heating oil. Smirk. Our mansions will be toasty. You Loyal Homelanders need not fret about me me me. Smirk.

"Oooops, almost forgot my republicon homelander propaganda Talking Point: 'Too bad about all the old people and stuff. While we will do anything at all to alleviate their suffering, we do have, like, lots of Konzervative Kompassion, smirk, for them. Smirk.'"

- Commander AWOL

and Poppy's hounds were on the job, making sure nobody disturbs their peace and quiet. With the Billion or so they've 'made', they can afford the most ruthless of the bunch.

here are the lyrics to "The Lion's Share" - recorded by 10,000 Maniacs in 1989 - when our country had suffered from 9 years of GOPiggie rule under RayGun and Poppy

Can I be unhappy?
Look at what I see: a beast in furs and crowned in luxury.
He's a wealthy man in the poorest land, a self-appointed king,
and there's no complaining while he's reigning.
The lambs are bare of fleece and cold; the lion has stolen that, I'm told.
There must be some creature mighty as you are.
The lambs go hungry (not fair), the biggest portion is the lion's share.
There must be some creature mighty as you are.

Can I be unhappy?
Listen and agree, no words can shame him or tame him.
The lambs are bare of fleece and cold; the lion has stolen that, I'm told.
There must be some creature mighty as you are.
The lambs go hungry (not fair), the biggest portion is the lion's share.
There must be some creature mighty as you are, as you are.

Razor claws in velvet paws, you dunce in your guarded home,
'til a stronger beast will call on you and pounce upon your throne.

Do we pay? Dearly, for the lion takes so greedily
and he knows that what he's taken, it is ours.
That's how the wealth's divided among the lambs and king of the beasts, it is so one-sided.
Until the lamb is king of the beasts we live so one-sided.

Think about that. Nothing left for anyone else. Nothing.

if I owned it now it would be near 2000 so I am glad I sold out and got an apt. Funny I just knew oil would go sky high. I am not sure why but I did the same with my car years ago. Got one that got near 30.
My son is now paying 400 a month for gas to get to work. If he can use my old car he can have it. I even willing pay more to my owners so they will not be held up so on this oil thing. It is going to be very hard in Maine this year. I guess we will have to go back to how I grew up in the 30's and 40's. I can not recall any one that did not shut their homes down to usually only using the kitchen and some times the living room. But then homes were more 'doored' off so you could do that. Is 'doored' a word? I wonder if fuel for homes was cut to people during WW2 I just do not recall. All these people I knew were working people so I do not think it was just a poor thing. It was just what people did for some reason. I also think homes were kept very cool. I was always told, if I was cold, put on a sweater. It may have been that we came out of the depression so it seemed like the way to live for all I know.

seems correct.

The raise really is for cost of living, and not a raise in the sense of a merit raise or raise in benefits.

There will be more hard luck stories as more and more baby boomers start collecting SS.

I don't know the answer. Social Security is what it is, though. I don't think those benefits should go up. It's a contract whose benefits have been regulated for years. It is no surprise. We all know what our benefits are going to be.

But there are other things that can be done. It seems the woman in the article is saying that there IS help, but the people aren't wanting to take it. There is the meals on wheels program, for example.

This may well be me one day. Heck, I'm already careful about the fuel I use in both summer and winter, trying to save on bills. I live in a hot area, so there is really no other choice, fuel-wise, to cool off. And yes, heat kills and is as uncomfortable as cold. This year I bought a small window energy efficient a/c for my bedroom, so that I could cut back on using the central unit. It was on sale at Sears. It did seem to help a bit. I think I'll get a second, larger one for a different window next year, and cut back even more on using the central unit.

Ironically, eating biscuits and beans is actually healthier than eating meat. So I can't say that that's a bad thing....except it probably doesn't feel that way since it is by necessity, not choice.

I don't know what you expect the so-called ruling class to do. Who are the ruling class, anyway? Wealthy people? Many people some call wealthy, others would not call wealthy. And some people have prepared for their old age better than others...meaning that they have a little nest egg tucked away. A nest egg which grew by going without things when they were younger. This doesn't make them wealthy, though. Look around at some of the younger people today. They have MP3 players, DVD players, plasma TVs, late model cars, and credit card debt. But they have little in their nest egg accounts. They will end up having to go without when they are elderly, because they chose not to go without when they were younger. I don't know what they are thinking, in order to plan for their later years so poorly. I will feel sorry for them, when they hit the old age wall and have to go without later. But don't ask me to give them what I have saved up...since I have gone without many things, in order to save a little something for my old age. While my friends are enjoying vacation trips, state of the art electronics, new vehicles, and other luxuries, I am spending my extra money on saving rescue dogs and saving for my old age. I will not be giving my savings away to those who couldn't bite the bullet, although I will feel compassion for them nonetheless.

I don't know the actual number but it absolutely HAS to be more than 2%. Someone more educated than I will have the answer I'm sure.

But I'm not sure even this Administration thinks inflation is only at 2%.

They exclude the things that are increasingly significantly in price. They exclude the things that poor people have to buy every day/month/year. The things that are the biggest part of their budget.

So, other things may have only increased 2%, but poor people don't need many of those things. They need gasoline, natural gas, fuel oil, electricity, and FOOD. So those aren't included in the costs of what they need to buy.

Who thought up that system?

Myself and my toddler son in the 1977 to 1978 period.

Now I have to worry if the income is less than $ 3000 a month.

So for me, inflation over thirty years is 16% per annum.

Also it was very clever of the economists, under Ronald Reagan, taking the cost of housing out of the mix
during the nineteen eighties.

However that's not how the actual cost of living is calculated.

Cost of living is the amount of money it takes to provide the basic necessities. Which much to the Republicans dismay actually does include food and energy.

Food and energy cost alone rose a combined 19.1% in fiscal year 2007.


Here's the CPI chart.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm

Go read it for yourself.

I knew someone would know. :)

Having the actual numbers is helpful in making a point.

doesn't include increases in fuel and food. We all know those have hardly gone up recently. :sarcasm:

I have never written nasty shit to another DUer... until now...

Your "nest egg" example, and all that shit about people who spend when they should save is ignorant bullshit... and you seem proud to say it!

Read "Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke
by Elizabeth Warren ... or almost any resource on what's happening to families today. You'll find that most families are NOT spending on luxuries. They're barely hanging on. They're one small health-care disaster from bankruptcy... and the bankruptcy laws have been changed to further stack the deck.

If you have saved... congratulations. I have, too. But you gotta recognize that we've been damned lucky, and that could change overnight.

Perhaps you're just in a mood, but your sancitimony and smugness are disgusting.

I was steaming mad when I read that post! :mad: Really makes me wonder whether we can ever achieve a more equitable and just society when so many have bought into these right-wing cliches and talking points without questioning the reality (or the facts) or considering the ultimate consequences for themselves as well as others of a society that says: "you're on your own buddy". It seems that even here on DU we have a lot of work still to do to educate people and to de-program them from this pervasive bullshit.

After a grueling winter with heating costs soaring through the roof, and more and more families finding it harder to put food on the table and gas in their cars, trying to ward off mortgage forfeiture on their homes, you can bet economics is going to be a major issue in the 2008 General Election. How will the voters view your #1 choice by November 2008?

Part of Obama's Economic Plan is to roll back unjust provisions of the 2005 Bankruptcy Bill and credit card fiasco authored by the repugs and supported by a few Democrats including one major Presidential Candidate. See Obama website for details.

Who are the ruling class? Would you like a list? It's not a secret, there are innumerable sources all over the internet, there is eve an annual edition of Forbes Magazine devoted entirely to these scions of genetic fortune.

You are aware, are you not, that the government figures on COL, inflation, unemployment, GDP, money supply, etc., are no longer worth the paper they're printed on, thanks to over 40 years of "fudging". In order to do their jobs, private economists have had to develop their own formulas and sources to arrive at these essential numbers for years now, because the government's are so far off as to be completely useless.

Your attitude is exactly what they count on to maintain their power.

unless you want to count the ability to make money, 17 of the top 25 on the Forbes list you cite made their own money.

from money and then made a lot more. The single most common factor, inheritance aside, is being very good at stealing, scamming, and profiting from the deprivation of others.

2% of my monthly income ($3000), working as a lab technician in a cushy union job, would be $60!!! That wouldn't even pay for my electricity and heating in a bad winter, much less rent, food, gas for the car, etc.

That they are doomed.

If a terrorist doesn't get them, or a nuke from Saddam Hussein or Iran's arsenal, or the avian flu, or the coming Super Staph epidemic that eats your flesh away... Plus they see that many of those who did squirrel away into worker pension funds lost their entire nest egg when the firm bankrupted and the managers used the pension funds to give themselves a Golden Parachute (worth hundreds of thousands) out.

Where would you as a twenty something save? The money that is saved has to end up somewhere - and where is that money going to be safe??

I do admire your lifestyle - but the comikng generation is going to have a bleak time of it - whether they save or not.

You've got people our age pegged. We see no future (oil! terror! global warming! declining dollar! Iran! water shortages! disease! poisoned foods! etc!) so we try to make the most of the present. And our attitudes on the job are directly linked to observing our parents' meaningless suffering in corporate environments. We suffer no fools, not even our bosses. We have no loyalty to anything but ourselves.

OP shouldn't assume that a young couple buying up every gadget on the planet has a bleeding wallet, though. We save around 20 pct of our income and buy plenty of toys.

If I dont have anything nice to say ......

OK .. I shut up now ...... enjoy your life ....

Thus, the way they calculate the COLA understates the real cost of living increase, which is at least 10% if they did count food, gas, heating oil, and natural gas. To put it bluntly, they're understating the real inflation rate.

may our society be much kinder and more compassionate to you than you want it to be for others. So hopefully you won't have to be eating cat food in your old age if you have some bad luck befall you.

For "Pride goeth before a fall".

Guess you've never heard of a thing called karma...you might want to save this post in your journal so you can refer to it when the aforementioned bites you in the ass.

There are all kinds of reasons that people find themselves without adequate savings...job losses, medical problems, crooked companies (enron comes to mind) crooked pension plans etc etc (take your pick)

In today's climate *saving* just doesn't cut it anymore so I would kind of get off of your ivory tower about "what young people have today" and how irresponsible everyone is who finds themselves without an adequate retirement fund.

Growing up during the great depression (the Dirty 30's) was an experience that only be had by participating. This song with its haunting melody and tune does indeed bring back the times.

http://www.macjams.com/song/15101

As a person born and raised in Maine, and one who spent much of my childhood in unknowing poverty, this phrase for the NYT rings absolutely, and heartbreakingly true. The adults are proud. And the children pay for that pride.

Right now, at 10:30 a.m., the temperature is 12 degrees in Aroostook County. The high is expected to be 19.

We are paying 3.30 per gallon for fuel oil and people expect it to be as much as $5 per gallon this time next year. It takes about 1000 gallons to heat our home through the winter. Seasonal bill to keep us from dying is $3,300 this year.

We are trying to convert to a wood furnace, but that conversion costs $5,000-10,000. Many Mainers are looking into wood. But the expectation is that the cost of wood is going to rise like crazy too, because it is linked to the cost of oil and demand.
One cord of wood is about $160, and a cord is equivalent to 150 gallons of fuel oil, depending on the efficiency of the furnace.
So even the working people are struggling like crazy up here.

We have an old stove in the basement that the previous owners used as a makeshift wood furnace before they converted to oil. I'm trying to refurbish that in order to get rid of our dependence on fuel oil, but I'm not real confident it will work. But the sucky part is that I cannot run oil exhaust up the same chimney as the wood exhaust, so I have to build another chimney ($2,000-$8,000) or run it through a hideous electric venting device out the side of the basement.

I bet we will be seeing elderly communal homes up here, or people are just going to pull up stakes and leave. Maine is the economic canary in the coal mine and it is bleak indeed up here.

The mills are shutting down, the foresters cannot compete with foreign wood prices, and the population up here is getting older and older as the young people abandon ship to find jobs.

I hope it's a mild winter.

(12 degrees when I got up this morning, too.)

maybe even Freeport - it's a whole different world. Maine has some of the most spectacular natural resources, but beauty doesn't buy heating oil. I blame the damn "free" trade agreements. Not only have the mills closed, but I live next door to you in New Hampshire and I've been searching for bona fide Maine seafood to purchase. Even Hannafords, a Maine-based company, sells only Indonesian shrimp. Do the salmon farms still exist around Eastport? Hannafords only has Canadian salmon. It's as if we've taken all our manufacturing skills and knowledge and flushed a way of life down the crapper. Very discouraging.

and we have to pay EU prices.

One good thing, the lobstermen won't have to sell their pickups when work gets slow.

Our family charters a party fishing boat. On a good day we can take home a couple of coolers of fresh fish for the freezer. It's not cheap either way but at least the fish is as fresh as it can get.

Dunno if any of it goes out of state, though.

Then again, I hear tell of people having trouble with wood poachers cutting up fallen trees and such. They're more than welcome to mine, frankly.

Michigan's hurting just as badly. We northern states should band together.

"many assume that others are worse off than themselves and are too proud to ask for assistance"

They oughta be treated better for having that spirit, but in a system where the ones who screams the loudest (about war, for example) are given preference, they fall through. It's a society system fault, and these people will never win as their spirit is a thing of the past, of the previous society system. That's sad, but maybe it's changing again?
I will try to honor people like this by _attempting_ to adopt their spirit, and not complain too much when life's hard facts hits me in the face. Which it does, from time to time.

The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) provides energy assistance that helps the poor and elderly. It's especially vital in the Northeast, where there is great dependency on heating by fuel oil, which is projected to rise 25% this winter.

So of course, President Oil Company Subsidies vetoed the bill with LIHEAP (and SCHIP) as "fiscally irresponsible," because poor folks throughout the nation might get some help in heating their homes for what a day or two costs in Iraq.

The madman must go. Preferably by impeachment, but certainly by election, if the madman and his neocon enablers allow it to take place.

this makes it worse, Her 623.00 per month is only going to rise 14.00, I know because I live on the same thing, any other assistance is going to be cut, her food stamps will be cut, her medicare premium will go up, that fourteen bucks is going to translate into maybe two if shes lucky.
We've thrown 804 billion dollars down the shithole of Iraq, that's what on the books, add another 500 billion off the books, plus all the other money this fool has thrown away.
We could have been experimenting with solar and other forms of energy to get off the oil teat, I hate what America has become.

However I live in South Carolina. At around two pm est it was around 52 degrees. That is pretty low for daytimes here. However I remain steadfast. I refuse to turn the heat on.

he was governor, and was told there were quite a few poor here, he basically said 'Where? Show 'em to me!'.)

Is that GOP power brokers, especially the Texas Energy Barons, be able to siphon the HIGHEST profits from the rest of us, and that we make sure they keep as much as possible by greatly reducing their taxes ....

What ? ... Did those 'poor' folk forget to plan for the futures ?

Why should FAT CAT GOP supporters give a damn ? .....

Hey ! ... Dont bother me: Watch this drive ........

:sarcasm:

to jawbone down those high oil prices!

Home heating propane is a lot more expensive for them now then when I moved away from my parents in 2004. There is not going to be too many presents under the X-mas tree this year.

for us is $60/month ($720/yr), and it runs the furnace, water heater, range, and dryer. I imagine we will get hit with an "end of year" bill in the spring for the price difference. I keep the thermostat set at 65 in the day and 60 at night (due to Hubby's health) in winter. In summer, the AC is set at 78 in the day and to be off at night. We are lucky to have neither really hot summers or really cold winters.

Depending on location, some electric companies have discounts for the low income and medical problems. I know that PG&E in NorCal has a 20% discount for the poor; we get it.

I grew up in a rural area, and many of the kids I went to school with were lucky if they had running water. Dirt floors weren't unheard of, either.

People are going to die this winter. Heat's getting too expensive, and it's hard when you have nothing.

They should apply for that discount Mainer's can get from Citgo. (Provided it is still on offer from Chavez and co) I haven't turned the heat on yet myself-It would cost me 500-800 to fill my tank depending.

can afford to help the elderly and disabled with?

They were cut, and the treasury was robbed first hand by George Bush, Dick Cheney, haliburton, bechtel and the rest of them. They're living high on the hog while these people have the very real issue of freezing to death in their beds at night.

Isn't looting the treasury fun George? I hope your soul burns painfully in hell for what you did to the people on earth.