Spike in jobless rate shows up as hundreds line up for food

Friday, March 20, 2009 3:00 AM  |  Printer friendly version | E-mail to a friend | By Mark Wineka

mwineka@salisburypost.com

Hundreds of people lined up Thursday for a quarterly food distribution at the Salisbury Civic Center on the same day that new Employment Security Commission figures confirmed a climbing jobless rate in Rowan County.

The Rowan jobless rate hit 11.4 percent for January in the latest state figures announced. The employment crisis probably is worse in actual numbers.

Some 1,200 Freightliner employees in Cleveland joined the unemployment rolls last Friday.

The unemployment rate is the highest reported since Pillowtex plants closed down in late July 2003, putting thousands out of work in Rowan and Cabarrus counties.

People began lining up chairs and staking out a spot in line Wednesday for the Thursday food distribution, which had enough surplus food commodities from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for about 1,500 families.

The distribution is believed to provide important food staples for more than 3,100 people.

Altrusa International coordinates the food distributions, whose numbers have steadily increased as the local economic news has worsened.

In the past, when the employment picture was better, Altrusa would see 600 to 700 families at the distributions, Terri Beck said.

But the number increased to 900 last September and 1,374 families in December, when the line extended from the Civic Center toward the U.S. Post Office on East Innes Street.

The distribution provides the "whole gamut of staples" from hams, to rice, to juices, to flour. Large families (four members and more) receive two boxes of items, while smaller families (one to three people) take home one.

"Everybody loves the peanut butter," said Beck, who provides much of the leadership for the event with Sandy Reitz, retired from the Department of Social Services and a longtime member of the professional women's group.

The Altrusa women stay until the food or people run out.

"We stay until we cannot see anyone else in the parking lot," Beck said.

About 85 people help with the distribution, which starts the day before with the unloading of trucks by prison inmates from Davidson County. The inmates, North Rowan ROTC, some 40 loyal volunteers and members of the Altrusa club (about 15 Thursday) make up the distribution workforce.

The USDA contracts with the DSS, the surplus food is delivered, and Altrusa — leading the food distributions for the past 15 years — takes care of the rest. In years past, the distribution sometimes involved the giving away of surplus cheese.

"They still call it the cheese run," Beck said.

People taking advantage of the distribution have to be from Rowan County and receiving food stamps, or they can show up and self declare their need for the assistance. No one is turned away.

Beck said people sometimes spend three to five hours in line, depending on the time of day they come and the demand.

With the bad economy, the types of people in line are changing. She said she saw "five guys who looked like they should be playing golf" in line Thursday.

"But they have to feed their families," she added of the men who had recently lost their jobs.

"You see more and more of that."

In December, she approached one of the women in line and asked why she was crying.

Grateful for the distribution, the woman explained she hadn't been able to afford meat in six months.

Besides working on the distribution, the Altrusans also provide a lunch for all the people who help.

"We walk out of here feeling so good," Beck said.

In January, the Employment Security Commission reported, Rowan had a labor force of 70,955, of which 8,079 were unemployed. The 11.4 percent unemployment rate is up from 9.3 percent in December.

The statewide unemployment rate for January was 9.7 percent, the highest rate since 1983. All 100 counties saw increases from the previous month.

Here are the jobless rates in counties touching Rowan and their increases since December:

- Cabarrus County, 10.1 percent, up from 8.5 percent in December.

- Iredell County, 11.7 percent, up from 9.2 percent.

- Davie County, 10.3 percent, up from 8.3 percent.

- Davidson County, 12.1 percent, up from 9.7 percent.

- Stanly County, 12.1 percent, up from 9.5 percent.