"We're trying to get back on our feet," the 55-year-old divorced father of six says, explaining how he's scheduled only about 30 hours a week stocking shelves at a Safeway supermarket on the overnight shift.
[. . .]
Life, he admits, is far different than when he worked 15 years as an electrician earning up to $18 an hour and later was a bouncer at a bar earning as much as $500 a night.
The broad-shouldered Proctor landed at the residence run by Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington, Va., 18 months ago when his 25-year marriage dissolved. He moved out of the couple's comfortable Bethesda, Md., home with little more than clothing.
"I'm one of the few who's been on top and now at the bottom," he told Catholic News Service. "So if anybody's out there who has the same feeling of 'Hey I've got it made,' don't count on it because you could be in my situation in a heartbeat."
Proctor is among the growing number of Americans living in poverty as revealed by U.S. census data. In 2010, 15.1 percent of Americans -- 46.2 million people, an all-time high in terms of numbers -- were living in poverty, according to statistics released Sept. 13. It was the third straight year poverty rose in the country.
[. . .]
Not only do the Census Bureau statistics reveal that the number of Americans living in poverty rose by more than 2.6 million in 2010, but they also show that the median household income fell below to $49,400, the first time since 1996 it was below $50,000. Median household income peaked in 1999 at $53,252.
[. . .]
Charles A. Gallagher, chairman of the sociology and criminal justice department at LaSalle University in Philadelphia, sees worsening poverty ahead unless any new jobs created offer a living wage and good benefits. He fears that the American Dream will be unreachable for millions of Americans faced with the prospect of working in low-wage jobs.
"If people at the bottom of the economic ladder can get a job at all, they're going to be stuck in a job that pays minimum wage with no benefits. They will be assimilated into America, but they will be assimilated into the underclass," he said.
Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, Calif., chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, voiced similar concerns in an interview with Catholic News Service Sept. 14.
"If people don't go back to work, there's not going to be money out there in the community," Bishop Blaire said. "To me it's a very simple matter."
He called upon Congress and the White House to "set aside the political stalemate that keeps people from working together."
"We have to keep people first," Bishop Blaire said. "I don't have the answers for what government can do and I don't think that's even our role as a church. Our role is to say the government needs to accept its responsibility. But it's not just the government, businesses, various entities, everybody has a responsibility."
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