STUDY: Divide Between Classes Of Society Growing In N.J.
By Michelle Durham
EDISON, N.J. (CBS) - Researchers at the The Legal Services of New Jersey conducted a study which reveals the growing disparity in the Garden State between the "haves" and the "have-nots."
One local expert, however, says this is not a New Jersey issue, but that it's a national one.
Diane Riley, who is the Director of Advocacy for The Community FoodBank of New Jersey, says she is not surprised by the findings of the study.
"The people we see coming increasingly are people who are struggling and work. We are no longer considered just emergency food."
Riley says people have to make choices between food and rent, or food and the electric bill, because they can't pay for both
Temple University Economics Professor William Stull says the emergence of world-wide labor markets has had a negative effect on the wages of developed nations like the United States.
"This is happening everywhere. This is not unique to New Jersey. Hollowing out of the middle class,
the capture of income gains by the upper class seems to be a feature of the political and economic development of the world-wide economy."
Single Mother and African American households were found to be disproportionately affected.
Stull says this has happened before, during The Industrial Revolution, but it brought about a political response that helped to rebalance the economy.
Something, he says, he has yet to see this time.
