Many rural Ohioans find themselves down and out
Families struggle as well-paying jobs vanish
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Barb Galbincea, Plain Dealer Reporter

Melissa Barringer loves living amid the ridges and hollows of
Appalachian Ohio, where she unwinds in a backyard swing to a chorus of
frogs and crickets, and her boys fish the Hocking and Ohio rivers for
bluegill and a legendary catfish.

But the living isn't easy.

For the Barringers and others in rural Ohio, making ends meet can be
just as trying as it is for families struggling at the other end of the
state in Cleveland's central city.

With full-time work hard to come by, Melissa and husband Brian hold
five part-time jobs to support themselves and their three sons. She
works as an aide at a school for the mentally retarded and at a nursing
home; he's a handyman and gas-field laborer and hauls junk.

Together, the Athens County couple make a little more than $400 a week.

"You do what you have to do," says Melissa. "You have to make the best
of what you've got."

Charles Perry wrote:

If people are made worse off by government action that
basically forbids people to earn a living the way they
previously did, taxpayers should compensate them. That
doesn't mean putting them on the dole forever, but
money for retraining should be allocated.

"Leif Erikson" phs.con> wrote in message
news:X%%WNg.742$UG4.726@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...

Charles Perry wrote:

goddamnedliarbush@yahoo.com wrote:

retrogrouch@comcast.net wrote:

Not much. Dirt-poor Oklahomans somehow managed to make
the move from the dustbowl to California by the
thousands during the 1930s.

retrogrouch@comcast.net wrote:

Counter-proposal: You don't.

(Unless you count $100 and a bus ticket as "wealth and credit")