Midnight Shoppers

I feel extreme sadness that there is this degree of financial instability in our nation.  I am so thankful for Wayne's job, and for our food storage!

From the Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704029304575526120920214834.html

HOUSTON—At midnight on the first of the month, a scene unfolds at many Wal-Mart StoresInc. sites that underscores the deep financial strains that many low-income American consumers still face.

Parking lots come to life after 11 p.m. as customers start to stream into the stores, cramming their shopping carts full of milk, infant formula and other necessities.

Then at midnight, when the government replenishes their electronic-benefit accounts with their monthly allotments of food stamps, nutritional grants for mothers with babies or other aid for needy families, they head for the registers.

The midnight scenes, which also play out at Kroger Co., the nation's largest supermarket chain, and other 24-hour stores, indicate that many Americans are still living from pay period to pay period, unemployed or underemployed two years after the recession took hold.

"If you really think about it, the only reason someone gets out there in the middle of the night and buys baby formula is that they need it, and they have been waiting for it," Bill Simon, the head of Wal-Mart's U.S. store business, said at a Goldman Sachsconference last month.

Wal-Mart executives have cited the midnight rush for the past year as evidence that stressed consumers are stretching the limits of the "paycheck cycle." The company hasn't disclosed exact figures, but it says purchases made with electronic-benefits cards have surged in the past two years.

Participation in the federal food-stamp program swelled from 26 million Americans in 2007 to more than 33 million last year, and it continues to surge. As of June, the latest figures available, more than 41.2 million people were receiving monthly assistance, which averaged $133.36 a person.

Similarly, the U.S. Agriculture Department's supplemental nutrition grant program for women, infants and children, known as WIC, saw participation grow beyond 9.3 million last year, up from 8.7 million two years ago, government figures show....

"We know our customers are living paycheck to paycheck as they continue to struggle as a result of the economy," said Wal-Mart spokesman Lorenzo Lopez.