All that; and seeing what's there to perceive, they might vote Bachmann out and vote in an intellgent educated and decent representative for a change [remember before Bachmann there was Mark Kennedy who was perhaps dumber than Bachmann and as much a Bush facilitator as Bachmann so that you have to go back to Bill Luther (before the last redistricting) for a talent, and a Dem].
I expect some of the worse hit will have been hit badly because they were short-sighted when times SEEMED good, and will be short-sighted now and expect an Obama-Dem mop-up of eight years of bad government to be fixed in a year and a half. Things are not that easy.
In any event, Strib, here, has the entire story, with these beginning paragraphs [read it, please in its entirety after seeing this post, and at the time I am posting this the Strib story had 92 comments]:
Poverty is hitting the suburbs with more sting
Bastions of the middle class, Twin Cities suburbs are seeing financial pain spreading quietly among their residents. They now have more poor people than the core cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
By MARY JANE SMETANKA, Star Tribune update: Mar. 6, 2010 - 10:03 PM
In a startling shift, Twin Cities suburbs now have more poor people than the core cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Job losses, foreclosures and disappearing insurance coverage have pushed requests for food stamps, medical assistance and emergency housing aid to record levels. Homeless numbers are rising. Food shelves are scrambling to meet demand.
It's a trend mirrored in suburbs across the nation, where a recent study found that suburban poverty has grown five times faster than it has in big cities.
Worst hit are single moms and unskilled workers whose finances were shaky before the economy dipped. But financial stress reaches well into the middle class.
"These are really the new poor,'' said Edna Hoium, Anoka County's income maintenance director. "They're shocked to find out how little they have to have to qualify for benefits."
"The stories are very quiet,'' said Cathy Maes, executive director of ICA, a Minnetonka food shelf that opened a satellite in Hopkins to meet new demand. "There's a lot of pride."
They are hard-working people like Claudia Morris, 34, of Hopkins. The divorced mother of two has a college degree and a $21-per-hour job as a Costco supervisor. She had always provided for her kids on her own. Then last summer her car was hit by a driver who ran a red light. Hospital scans after the accident revealed a growth in Morris' neck: thyroid cancer.
An operation and radiation treatments followed. But health insurance didn't cover all of the costs. She struggled with fatigue as doctors tried to balance her medications. Unable to work full time, Morris moved her family from a Minnetonka apartment to a cheaper house that she rents in Hopkins.
Bills stacked up. She emptied her savings and borrowed from relatives, "even my grandpa." In desperation last fall, she went downtown to apply for food stamps. She wasn't poor enough to qualify.
[...] In Anoka County, where food stamp use increased 30 percent last year and people are staying on county assistance longer, Hoium said people who lost good-paying blue-collar jobs find it hard to lower their sights as they look for new positions. Counselors tell people who lost jobs that paid upwards of $30 an hour that one that pays $10 an hour is better than nothing.
"It's very much a cultural adjustment," she said.
Hopefully that "cultural adjustment" might involve looking at the other party, the one not constantly bleating about tax levels, and instead the one that's kept, against the GOP onslaught, the assistance programs the article describes so that now the faltering families find out who their true friends really are. The Dems want the safety net, the GOP says, "Taxes, taxes, taxes," and put families up to acrobatics without a net. The crash is much harder that way, landing not in the safety net, but via a thud and a splat.
I hope that within MN 6, the Hal Kimball candidacy in SD 18 Wright County advances, because that county, and the entire west end of MN 6 has felt the hurt. I say that, knowing that Hal is not a bleeding heart type but rational, yet if the district sends a GOP to the far right of Steve Dille to replace Dille, it will only make the hurt last longer, harder, and create a sense of isolation from helpful but unalloted options for helping cushion things.
Read the article. It is time that a governor attuned to needs of the people in hard times is elected, to replace the ambitions for higher office and the mean petty spirit that's been seen too much in the Unallotor.