Video Transcript:

GLORIA PENNER (Host): The national unemployment rate rose to a 26 year high in September to 9.8 percent. And US census data released this week shows a 1.5 percent increase in poverty rates in San Diego County between 2007 and 2008. Now, that’s seven times faster than the national average. In 2008, 46,000 San Diegans were living in poverty. We put Murtaza Baxamusa, of the Center on Policy Initiatives on the record about why San Diego has been hit so hard by the economic recession.

MURTAZA BAXAMUSA (Center on Policy Initiatives): What we found most surprising is not the fact that poverty has increased, but the steepness by which poverty has increased – 1.5 percentage points, that’s 46,000 people additional in poverty. And primarily San Diego has not been hit by such a deep recession in the past. This time we see that San Diego has become more vulnerable to it because of its pays of low wage workers and low wage industries, such as construction, tourism, and retail, they are more likely to slide into poverty as a result of their hours getting cut or their wages getting cut. There are 850,000 individuals in San Diego that are struggling to make ends meet. These are people in economic hardship. This is at around 200 percent of the federal poverty level, which translates into $44,000 a year. This is an extremely high number, and we’ve looked at it over the past decade. This translates into 29 percent of the county’s population that is having difficulty making ends meet, for a basic family budget to be able to support childcare, putting food on the table, health insurance, or even being able to pay their rent. What we see here is the tip of the iceberg. In the 2008 data, it’s the beginning of the recession. We expect the numbers to slide further down.

PENNER: Joining me now to talk about San Diego’s poverty rate are Alisa Barba, western bureau chief for NPR, and Miriam Raftery, she's the editor of East County Magazine. Those numbers, let me start with you Miriam, are shocking actually. I mean, almost 30 percent of our people are living in poverty here in San Diego County. Do you think that it reflects San Diego itself? I mean are we saying that San Diego itself looks as though we have one third of our people living in poverty?

MIRIAM RAFTERY (East County Magazine): Well yes, Gloria. And actually in East County – in some of the areas there – the numbers are even more shocking. In El Cajon, 21 percent of the people are living below the federal poverty level – that’s $11,000 a year or so for an individual – and a shocking 46 percent of them, almost half of the population of El Cajon, are what’s considered economically challenged living within 200 percent of that level.

PENNER: How has that changed the feeling in El Cajon, generally, when you walk through the streets? Is there a feeling of depressing, sadness, closed stores? What?

RAFTERY: Well we are seeing a lot of stores shuttered. I know the city is trying to bring more in, and of course they’re struggling with the national economy, but we do see more homelessness. We certainly know that the lines at the food banks are up. Demand for the food banks throughout East County are high, and throughout the county overall of course. 

PENNER: When you have this kind of poverty in an area, or economic hardship, people really can’t afford to do extra things, maybe like sending their kids to college or getting them educated. What does this say for the future economic health of San Diego?

ALISA BARBA (National Public Radio): You know, I think it’s going to be a number of years of retrenching. I think people – you know five years ago when the economy was going strong, when construction was booming, when peoples home values were going through the roof – I think people began to dream very big. And I think those dreams are being scaled back. It is very interesting looking at – we’re not talking about poverty here – but in terms of savings. Remember 5, 10 years ago we were talking about how Americans weren’t saving any money; everybody’s using their credit cards. Our saving rate has grown tremendously in the last couple years. It’s amazing how quickly people turn around when they recognize there’s no more money coming in, what money I did have is evaporating and we’re hunkering down. When retail sales – we were talking about that earlier – people still aren’t shopping. People still aren’t going out and buying. I mean, that’s where we see this. We see stores shutting down all over the place because if you’re living in economic hardship, you’re not going to go buy the new TV. You’re not going to go out and get the new set of Vans that your kids are demanding, or whatever it is.

PENNER: Sure. Well with so many San Diegans struggling to make ends meet, we wondered how many of them were accessing Social Service benefits like food stamps. So we asked Murtaza Baxamusa whether the need is being met in San Diego County and here is what he had to say.

BAXAMUSA: There is historically a significant gap between families that are eligible for food stamps and those that are receiving it. We see that only about 35,000 households in the county have received food stamps in 2008, whereas we expect that are eligible to receive food stamps to be three times that. So there is a significant gap. It is historical, and it is deep rooted within San Diego especially. As we know, San Diego performs the worst in terms of allowing eligible residents to participate in the food stamp program.

PENNER: That’s kind of concerning, isn’t it? I mean it’s so deep-rooted in San Diego that we aren’t good about giving out food stamps. Where does that come from?

BARBA: I think there’s historically a sense in San Diego that people need to work for what they’re given and that people shouldn’t be on the dole. That noting comes for free. And that goes way back, I think, in the mentality here.

PENNER: Well, it also I think affects the ability of San Diego to access money. I mean if we’re not giving out food stamps, won’t that affect the rest of the economy? People won’t have the stamps to spend in the stores.

RAFTERY: Well of course Gloria. And if they have what limited income that they have, if they have to spend that on food, that’s money they’re not going to be spending on shopping, on vacations, on anything else that might boost our local economy here.

PENNER: Well why isn’t the county doing more to make sure that people get the food stamps that they need?

RAFTERY: You know, I think there is a mindset among some that poor people are poor because they’re lazy, or they don’t work hard, and obviously in this economy we’ve got an awful lot more poor people than we’ve ever had before. And many of these are formerly middle class people. People that had white collar jobs even that are out. People who have lost their homes through foreclosure, and the banking crisis, and mortgage crisis. And I think, you know, that goes a bit to the failure of the federal government to properly regulate that industry as well.

PENNER: So we’ve been talking about 2007 - 2008. What can we expect in 2009 when those figures come out?

BARBA: Its all going to get better. Everything’s going to be fine. No, unfortunately not. I mean we’re looking 2009. In 2008 we looked at 10,000 jobs lost in San Diego. 2009 they’re saying upwards of 40,000 jobs lost. While there’s a lot of spin going on right now about how the economy is getting better and we’re pulling out of the recession, the news still isn’t uniformly good. Not by any means.