Americans Struggle As Paychecks Fail To Satisfy Household Needs

NEW YORK - The calculus of living paycheck to paycheck in America is getting harder.

What used to last four days might last half that long now. Pay the gas bill, but skip breakfast. Eat less for lunch so the kids can have a healthy dinner.

Across the nation, Americans are increasingly unable to stretch their dollars to the next payday as they juggle higher rent, food and energy bills. It's starting to affect middle-income working families as well as the poor, and has reached the point of affecting day-to-day calculations of merchants such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 7-Eleven Inc. and Family Dollar Stores Inc.

Food pantries, which distribute foodstuffs to the needy, are reporting severe shortages and reduced government funding at the very time that they are seeing a surge of new people seeking their help.

From Family Dollar to Wal-Mart, merchants have adjusted their product mix and pricing accordingly. Sales data show a marked and more prolonged drop in spending in the days before shoppers get their paychecks, when they buy only the barest essentials before splurging around payday.

'It's pretty pronounced,' said Kiley Rawlins, a spokeswoman at Family Dollar. 'It seems like to us, customers are running out of food products, paper towels sooner in the month.'

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, said the imbalance in spending before and after payday in July was the biggest it has ever seen.

And 7-Eleven says its grocery sales have jumped 12 percent to 13 percent over the past year, compared with only slight increases for nonnecessities like gloves and toys.

'It even costs more to get the basics like soap and laundry detergent,' said Michelle Grassia, who lives with her husband and three teenage children in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, N.Y.

Her husband's check from his job at a grocery store used to last four days. 'Now, it lasts only two,' she said.

To make up the difference, Grassia buys one gallon of milk a week instead of three. She sometimes skips breakfast and lunch to make sure there's enough food for her children. She cooks with a hot plate because gas is too expensive. She also depends more than ever on the bags of free vegetables and powdered milk from a local food pantry.

Grassia's story is neither new nor unique. With the fastest-rising food and energy prices since the 1980s, low-income consumers are making their budgets stretch by eating cheap foods such as peanut butter and pasta.

Industry analysts and some economists fear the strain will get worse as people are hit with higher mortgage rates and home heating bills this winter.

'Everything Is Up'

It's bad enough already for 85-year-old Dominica Hoffman.

She gets $1,400 a month in pension and Social Security from her days in the garment industry. After paying $500 in rent on an apartment in Pennsauken, N.J., and shelling out money for food, gas and other expenses, she's broke by the end of the month. She's had to cut fruits and vegetables from her grocery order.

'Everything is up,' she said.

Many consumers, particularly those making less than $30,000 a year, are cutting spending on nutritious food such as milk and vegetables, and analysts fear they're further skimping on basic medical care and other critical services.

'The reality of hunger is right here,' said the Rev. Melony Samuels, director of The BedStuy Campaign against Hunger, a church-affiliated food pantry in Brooklyn.

The pantry scrambled to feed 5,000 new families over the past 12 months, up almost 70 percent from 3,000 the year before.

'I am shocked to see such numbers,' Samuels said, 'and I am really concerned that this is just the beginning of what we are going to see.'

In the past three months, Samuels has seen more clients in higher-paying jobs, the $35,000 range, line up for food.

The Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York cited a 30 percent rise in visitors in the first nine months of this year, compared with 2006.

Maureen Schnellmann, senior director of food and nutrition programs at the American Red Cross Food Pantry in Boston, reported a 30 percent increase from January through August over last year.

Families Struggle To Survive

Until a few months ago, Dellria Seales, a home care assistant, was just getting by living with her daughter, a hairdresser, and two grandchildren in a one-bedroom apartment for $750 a month. Then a knee injury in January forced her to quit her job, leaving her at the mercy of Samuels' pantry because most of her daughter's $1,200 a month income goes to rent, energy and food costs.

'I need it. Without it, we wouldn't survive,' Seales said as she picked up carrots and bananas.

John Vogel, a professor at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business, worries that the squeeze will lead to a less nutritious diet and inadequate medical or child care.

In the meantime, rising costs show no signs of abating.

Gas prices hit a record nationwide average of $3.23 a gallon in late May before receding a little, though prices are expected to soar again later this year. Food costs have increased 4.5 percent over the past 12 months. Egg prices were 44 percent higher, and milk was up 21.3 percent over the past 12 months to nearly $4 a gallon, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The average family of four is spending anywhere from $7 to $10 extra a week, or $40 more a month, on groceries alone, compared with a year ago, according to retail consultant Burt Flickinger III.