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Numbers for hard times

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The shutdown of as many as 68 Dominick’s grocery stores next month could produce the biggest layoff in metro Chicago in years, with upward of 6,600 employees at risk of losing their jobs. […]

According to executive search firm Challenger Gray & Christmas Inc., employers in Illinois cut a total of 2,202 jobs in Chicago in September — only about a third of the Dominick’s jobs at stake. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, meanwhile, reports that 5,513 people in the Chicago area reported losing a job associated with a mass layoff in the first three months of 2013. Again, that number is significantly below Dominick’s employee headcount.

* Crain’s…

A closely watched indicator of Chicago business activity surged last month as companies ignored the federal government shutdown and scrambled to ramp up production.

The Chicago Business Barometer hit 65.9 in October, up 10.2 points from September, its biggest one-month gain in 30 years.

But…

Employment was up 4.5 points to 57.7, the highest level since June but far below the pace set by new orders and production.

“Purchasers say the increase was due to callbacks from layoffs, temporary workers and using interns to fill in the gap,” she added. “There wasn’t any really new hiring.”

* On to the newspaper industry…

Newspaper circulations in Chicago continued to drop this year as readers shifted to digital channels, while the companies that print the papers kept up efforts to charge for online products.

Average print circulation for the city’s biggest newspaper, Tribune Co.’s Chicago Tribune, declined 8 percent to 677,348 on Sundays and 12 percent to 413,655 on Wednesdays during the six months that ended with September, compared with the same six-month average for 2012, according to the Alliance for Audited Media.

At the Chicago Sun-Times, the average Sunday circulation fell 11 percent to 165,404 and the Wednesday circulation slid 13 percent to 167,493.

* We had several comments yesterday like this one about today’s cut to the food stamp program…

SNAP isn’t supposed to be easy or convenient, folks. Its supposed to be just enough to get by until you can improve your own situation. Anything more invites a cycle of poverty.

Some numbers…

The Illinois Hunger Coalition says about 349,000 seniors and 886,000 children statewide will be affected.

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 11:05 am

Comments

–The Illinois Hunger Coalition says about 349,000 seniors and 886,000 children statewide will be affected.–

“There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies.” — Winston Churchill.

Old socialist.

Comment by wordslinger Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 11:13 am
=== SNAP isn’t supposed to be easy or convenient, folks. Its supposed to be just enough to get by until you can improve your own situation. Anything more invites a cycle of poverty. ===

I could not disagree more.

After all, the biggest loser from cuts in SNAP is very likely to be Wal-Mart.

Comment by Bill White Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 11:15 am
Then again, I am an unrepentant [new] Keynesian.

Comment by Bill White Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 11:16 am
“SNAP isn’t supposed to be easy or convenient, folks. Its supposed to be just enough to get by until you can improve your own situation. Anything more invites a cycle of poverty”

Does that mean that people with disabilities and seniors need to have their conditions go into spontaneous remission so that they can get over their dependency?

Comment by Aldyth Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 11:18 am
This is bad. The high cost of low prices. Workers with health insurance and pensions will become unemployed.
The Wal-Mart has lower prices, but many of their employees make so little they are on Medicaid and also pay little or no taxes. The state has to pay for that. Where does Quinn want to get the money to pay for this? He wants to steal it from retired teachers and state workers.

Comment by DuPage Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 11:23 am
Well said Bill and welcome to the dark side of economics.

Comment by Jorge Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 11:26 am
‘SNAP isn’t supposed to be easy or convenient, folks. Its supposed to be just enough to get by until you can improve your own situation. Anything more invites a cycle of poverty.’

‘…886,000 children statewide will be affected.’

Starve the kids. That will teach ‘em! Why did they choose to be poor anyway? Lazy bums.

Comment by late to the party Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 11:28 am
- 349,000 seniors and 886,000 children -

They should have included disabled as well, over 3/4ths of recipients fall into those categories.

The rest are mostly folks working low wage jobs for companies that encourage their employees to apply.

Unfortunately these facts don’t make it into the right wing fantasy world where numbers don’t exist.

Comment by Small Town Liberal Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 11:28 am
And the Pantagraph finally got State Farm to admit they’re moving some jobs out of B-N with the phasing out of locally based claims departments. Still refused to say how many jobs or whether folks will be moving to ATL, Dallas or Arizona but doesn’t look good.

Comment by hisgirlfriday Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 11:34 am
Two personal observations

Only real reason I keep getting the newspaper on a daily basis is I’m used to doing the crossword and sudoku puzzles on paper; just doesn’t feel the same doing it on the computer.

Have relatives on some of the assistance programs. In their case, a family of four (2 adults, 2 young kids) eats okay … especially when you add in some occasional left over food from the restaurant where one of them is employed. The cut might be noticed but it will be because they always are a bit short of cash for things the programs don’t pay for but they don’t seem to be worried about it.

Comment by RNUG Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 11:34 am
SNAP/EBT is an interesting contrast. On one hand many needy people rely on it. The flip side is that factory farms and convenience stores love the corporate welfare.

Then one must ask how much is too much. Not a simple answer.

Comment by Allen Skillicorn Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 11:43 am
SNAP is the best deal that government has to offer. You have to prove low income to get it. It gets spent locally on food. The vast majority of beneficiaries are children. In my opinion, what’s not to like?

But hey, “starve the kids” seems to be the GOP motto these days.

Comment by DuPage Dave Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 11:44 am
DuPage, at least at my local Dominics I am not sure I would blame the scourge of low prices. In general it seems for a long time they had spent to much time and money remodeling the place (every 2 years it seemed like) and never figured out what they were trying to be…

They had prices like whole foods at time and to some degree Trader Joes but didn’t seem to have the quality of those places, it ended up being a fancier Jewel IMHO…

Comment by OneMan Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 11:50 am
Lets remember these aren’t cuts it is simply the experation of an increase that was included in federal stimulus spending. I do agree as far as bang for your buck this is a good program as the money is spent and stimulates the economy unlike tax cuts where money can be saved providing no stimulus.

As far as 47 ward talking about the disabled sure seems like a lot more disabled in last few years. Disability rolls have exploded must of been massive outbreaks of polio or huge Increase in accidents that media didn’t report.

Comment by Fed up Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 12:06 pm
“But hey, “starve the kids” seems to be the GOP motto these days.”
—

Cheap shot, and not a smart one. It’s just more ‘talking points’ from advocates playing behind the scenes.

It’s not about the SNAP program. IMO, it’s a stupid place to cut - it’s just one more slam from DeeCee to Main Street. But it’s also just one piece in the bigger Farm Bill puzzle (a pressure point), and if you want to keep SNAP funding at current levels, you’re going to have to make cuts elsewhere.

Personally, the Ethanol ‘mandate’ would be a great place to cut. And that includes all those ‘Green’ tax credits for Ethanol. Don’t care if it does hurt ADM. Would probably bring down food prices.

Then there’s the crop guarantee subsidies, which under the Farm Bill will actually be increasing. And that’s mostly to benefit the big agricultural players.

And maybe the biggest thing is to kick all those proposed EPA rules and regs on Agriculture to the side of the road. Those people are useless. Instead of spending all the money the EPA will waste on trying to do things like regulate ‘dust’ on farms (seriously people???), use the money to instead fully fund the SNAP program. Fair trade.

Look beyond the obvious and you’ll see all the players and rent seekers lined up for their piece of the action.

Comment by Judgment Day Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 12:10 pm
Same out here, OneMan. I used to shop at Dominick’s all the time a couple of decades ago because of their lower prices. After they were taken over, constantly decorating. Didn’t seem to know whether they wanted to be an upscale coffee shop that also sells groceries, a produce section designed by a Rockwell fan, or a european floral shop–all while asking $2 for a medium sized green pepper.

Started shopping at the smaller stores that began expanding not long after, like Caputo’s where produce is cheap and all the boxed stuff is twice the price of anywhere else–which is just fine with me.

Noticed lately, though, that the smaller chains produce is going up–and it doesn’t look like the normal increase associated with the season. This’ll be interesting.

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 12:11 pm
Add in the fact that milk prices are about to skyrocket if the farm bill doesn’t pass, and things get even uglier.

So much for “putting milk into babies” and children.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 12:12 pm
“And the Pantagraph finally got State Farm to admit they’re moving some jobs out of B-N with the phasing out of locally based claims departments. Still refused to say how many jobs or whether folks will be moving to ATL, Dallas or Arizona but doesn’t look good.”
—
HGF, some jobs are going. But mostly it’s going to be new hires going to the regional centers. Too bad they are outside Illinois.

There is one benefit. Even with all the Corp. South building expansion, they are crowded - really tight. They can use the room.

Comment by Judgment Day Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 12:17 pm
BTW, for those who don’t know. Sometimes, the best deal is Walmart’s price matching for the few more expensive produce items they stock (i.e., find a local ad with e.g., tiny avocados that are two for a buck and use it to buy the bigger ones at Wal-Mart). If your Wal-Mart has everything you need and it’s close by, might even save you a longer trip. In our area we have a “Valli” or something that has ads listing the cheapest prices around, and I don’t even know where it is. But the ads work at Wal-Mart.

For those on a tight budget whose family would rather eat fruit and veggies, you can save quite a few bucks this way on “price per” items (even “per pound” items if you only shop at Wal-Mart).

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 12:21 pm
@Judgment Day - “Starve the kids” may be a cheap shot but is it really an inaccurate one?

What message are people supposed to take from the GOPs actions in not only refusing to continue the SNAP expansion even though the economic downturn is ongoing for most people, but more importantly their decisions to decouple food stamps from the farm bill and drastically slash the food stamps program once isolated. The only reason to tear asunder the bipartisan compromise to provide rural economic security and reduce hunger that had been brokered by McGovern and Dole decades ago was out of a hostility for poor people.

Would “The War on the Poor” be a more suitable frame of the state of affairs at present?

Comment by hisgirlfriday Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 12:46 pm
I don’t see anything stopping people from contributing to organizations to help feed the poor, or just inviting someone who needs help to have dinner with you. That is a completely different situation than using the force of law to take money from some people to benefit others. Beyond a basic safety net, which I don’t hear anyone questioning, those who want to do more can put their own money where their mouths are.

Comment by Harry Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 12:46 pm
““Starve the kids” may be a cheap shot but is it really an inaccurate one?”
—-
Doesn’t matter, because you’re not going to win anything going forward with that position. Both sides are now busy ’selling’ to their own political partisans, so there’s likely going to be no good outcome.

You want to get people to move on SNAP? Both sides are going to have to give stuff up in the Farm Bill. Has yet to happen.

Comment by Judgment Day Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 1:10 pm
- Beyond a basic safety net, which I don’t hear anyone questioning -

What could possibly be more basic than assistance buying food?

Comment by Small Town Liberal Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 1:36 pm
For some people, SNAP has become a career choice. For others, they didn’t have an option but needed the continual assistence.
It has been abused by many. But, starving people is not the way to correct it. Perhaps sending some of the money directly to food pantries (instead of the individuals) is a partial answer?
There are things that you can pick away at. I personally find it abhorrent that you can use it to buy snacks and soda since neither of those categories are food by any stretch of the immagination.

Comment by Belle Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 1:53 pm
In all the Republican meetings I’ve attended over the years, I have never heard the expression “Starve the Kids.” Ever. That cheap shot is “exhibit A” as to what passes for political discourse these days from too many individuals.

Comment by Louis G. Atsaves Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 1:55 pm
=I personally find it abhorrent that you can use it to buy snacks and soda since neither of those categories are food by any stretch of the immagination.=

The reality is that there are some folks, including children, who cannot e.g., identify all the different types of lettuce many suburban folks often have stocked in their fridge. New cashiers in the burbs often can’t identify kale, or whether the round green thing is cabbage or lettuce.

It’s not always a case of “not caring” or being silly with what little money you have. It’s sometimes just not knowing or buying what is available to you.

Have you ever visited a “mom and pop” store on the southside of Chicago? They do what they can, but options are limited.

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 2:07 pm
- 349,000 seniors and 886,000 children -

The Republican response is you should be working before you can benefit. How is this not a message “so starve” if you’re not? It’s not the working poor adults whom are punished here.

So kids and seniors, get a job if you want to eat!

Comment by Wensicia Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 2:07 pm
And this is exactly where I began following my own path on this subject over a decade or so ago.

So many seem to be so concerned about all the starving children overseas (whose parents BTW just happen to be willing to work for much lower wages than e.g., IT workers here), that it seemed to be becoming heavily “one-sided.” Not the flavor of globalism I thought I signed up for.

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 2:33 pm
“I personally find it abhorent that you can use it to buy snacks and soda…..”

I personally find it abhorent when people will incorporate themselves so they can duduct miles they drive for any purpose as a ‘business expense’ on their taxes, or any of the other ways that supposedly ‘upright’ hard working ‘makers’ game the tax system.

How come it is so abhorent to cheat the welfare system, but it is socially aceeptable–heck even bragged about –how people game the tax system to decrease their burden??? Heck everybody has to pick up the slack from one just like they do for the other.

Pewrhaps some of the self congratulating, har working ‘makers’ ought to take the plank out of their own eye before plucking the speck of sawdust out of the welfar cheat’s eye!!

rant over….

Comment by train111 Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 2:34 pm
I kind of liked your rant, Train.

While there’s nothing wrong with taking the deductions for which you qualify, the perception I’ve been getting lately is that some people are really, really stretching it and are yacking about it more as if it’s something to be proud of.

Oh look! Here’s my facebook page, here’s my selfie holding a product in my hands, and this is my vacation…err, business trip.

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 2:50 pm
I’ve never heard it put that way, train111. When you think about it - there seems to be little functional difference between gaming the tax system and cheating at welfare.

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I personally find it abhorent when people will incorporate themselves …
=================================================

Out of curiosity, however, who are the people incorporating themselves? I have to admit that I’ve missed that particular tactic. Of course, I don’t get out much, so there you go.

Comment by Name Withheld Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 3:12 pm
Name Witheld–Incorporating oneself was a tactic I saw used several years back by persons involved with Amway. Thy considered all their driving, meals and so forth as ‘business expense’–even though Amway was a side gig for all of them, and could therefore deduct.

Comment by train111 Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 3:28 pm
@LouisGAtsaves: Of course no one has come out and said “Starve the Children” but if you have spent 30 years using harmful rhetoric and enacting policies to do as much damage as possible to “welfare queen” mothers, eventually folks are going to get the impression you’re not too fond of their kids either.

And its not like its only Democrats that have noticed this anti-poor people vibe from the GOP. Just look at the way Ohio GOP governor John Kasich, a staunch conservative, got bashed and ridiculed by the WSJ editorial board recently for saying his Christian faith made him care about the poor and sick and want to expand Medicaid. This is a guy who went even further than Scott Walker on public unions and used to work as a Fox News host, and he’s cast out of the GOP for not punishing poor people in his state enough on Medicaid expansion.

Comment by hisgirlfriday Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 3:40 pm
And those folks at Dominicks sure look dismayed–after all the years and loyalty so many of them I’ve known and chatted with from time to time. Yet I also read about great interest by other Grocery Retail Stores wanting to take over that space, in various increments, so at least there’s still hope for most of those 6,600 and their families…

As to the Trib and Sun-Times, though, it sure is sad to see their numbers still dwindling…but let’s face it, (as they obviously have), you can just get SO much free news and information on the Internet that it’s unbelievable, really. And yet, there’s nothing like that great feeling I get as I grab hold of that crisp, clean Newspaper on certain days every week and find myself grabbing hold of and flicking through the pages to one Section or another…I just wish the younger Generation could appreciate that good feeling you can get somehow…(after all, keyboarding CAN get REAL tiresome sometimes)…!

Comment by Just The Way It Is One Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 3:47 pm
@Train - I couldn’t agree more with your sentiments re: SNAP recipients and soda/junk food.

Although I would be willing to perhaps accept a deal where SNAP recipients are barred from using proceeds on soda/junk food if farm subsidy recipients are banned from using their welfare checks on pickup trucks that get less than 20 mpg. I mean climate change is a threat to us all just like obesity right? ;

Comment by hisgirlfriday Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 3:47 pm
STL–my point, everyone seems to agree on providing basic assistance, the argument seems to be about going beyond that. Some people are saying that the govt should do more and I’m saying that beyond the basics which everyone seems agreed on, you’re fee to spend your own money but by what right do you use the law to take someone else’s money from them?

Comment by Harry Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 3:48 pm
“It’s supposed to be temporary until you can get back on your feet .” Amazing to me how many Republicans say things along these lines while openly citing their strong Christian faith. And voting for Terry Duffy’s CME break: or Sears was it?

By the way, can someone please tell me if that is to be temporary also - until Terry and the CME can get back on their feet?

Comment by low level Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 4:00 pm
@Harry:

You keep talking about “forcibly” taking money from some for the benefit of others. It’s called taxation and it’s been around for a while now. They even put it in the Constitution. How about that.

Comment by Demoralized Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 4:06 pm
- beyond the basics which everyone seems agreed on -

Where do you see agreement? These programs are being cut, and that’s being applauded by one side and decried by another.

Comment by Small Town Liberal Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 4:08 pm
Harry:
I don’t see anything stopping people from contributing to organizations to help feed the poor, or just inviting someone who needs help to have dinner with you.

Wow, this is the kind of ignorance we’re dealing with here.

According to the article Rich posted yesterday, the cuts will cost Illinois residents $220 million in SNAP benefits through September 2014.

The Greater Chicago Food Depository, in its fiscal year ended June 30, 2012, took in total revenues of $81.5 million (by far the biggest food bank in the State). So, if the GCFD doubles its total revenue from fiscal 2012 in fiscal 2014, it will cover about a third of the cut that’s hitting the state. While I’m sure the GCFD will do everything it can to increase it’s contributions, I somehow doubt it will be able to double it’s revenue, along with every other food provider in the state boosting their revenue to make up for the lost funds. Which weren’t enough to begin with, which is why we still have food banks.

Oh, and have some poor folks over for a meal. Yes, that’s the ticket. One meal. That makes up for everything. In a week, that little baby won’t be crying in hunger. Or those kids won’t have any problem concentrating at school due to hunger because ’someone’ had them over for dinner one night.

Maybe we should just let them all starve and decrease the surplus population?

Comment by jerry 101 Friday, Nov 1, 13 @ 6:42 pm