Working class penalization by Corporate America

My father had a frequently used threat for us children when we didn't stay in line. Although, to his credit, he never followed through with the threat, it comes into my mind as I watch all us working-class folks struggle up the financial hill and then get knocked back down again. That phrase was "I'm going to whip you until you cry and then whip you for crying." That is exactly what is happening now to the working poor.

Many of us have fallen into an apathetic depression because we know in our hearts that we "can't do anything about anything." We are being whipped into financial insolvency and then whipped for being poor.

New laws need to be legislated to protect us from two of the largest offenders who knock us back down the hill. I am not speaking of the pharmaceutical companies and all the "Big Boys" - the Lobbyists, the CEOs who play stocks with our monies, nor the crooked politicians who help them. I am speaking of two entities who undermine us from achieving on a grass-roots level: The utility companies and the "big three" credit reporting agencies.

Both of these entities exploit the working poor. Although the working poor are hard working and honest, these two corporate giant "life eaters" punish them as if they were felons. They are truly "whipped until they cry and then whipped for crying."

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Jane and John Doe are wonderful people, by anyone's standards - The "Salt of the Earth" people that make America what it should be in its most idealistic form. Jane grew up on a small truck farm in Eastern Kentucky where her father worked in the coalmines and the family sold fresh vegetables to survive. After her father died of black lung disease, Jane quit school in the tenth grade to help her mother, financially, to raise the younger children. She took a job as a waitress, and has worked as a waitress ever since, only taking time off to give birth to two beautiful daughters.

John is a mechanic, and most folks say he is a good one. Everyone says he is an honest one. He works in his yard from daylight till dark, replacing transmissions, doing tune-ups and oil changes, and even changing engines with the help of a homemade come-along and his two little girls handing him wrenches.

Jane and John report every dime they earn to the IRS. They attend Sunday school and church every week, and give one-tenth of their gross earnings to their small church. They always pay their bills, but with the small amount of earned money, they sometimes run a bit behind.

Their utilities have never been shut off. They have received disconnection notices, but have always scraped the money together to pay the bills before the disconnect date. A few months ago, they receive notices from both utility companies that, because their payments usually run late, they must pay another deposit (to both the electric and the gas company). The "additional deposit" to the electric company was six hundred dollars, or, "per their policy, two and a half imes the average bill." The gas company was not as compliant in revealing their "policy," but told them that the additional deposit was to be $400.

Jane was in disbelief, since they had never had their utilities cut off; but both companies assured the Doe family that "whether the current bill was behind or not, their utilities would be cut off if the additional deposits were not paid by the due dates." The electric company did offer to let them pay the deposit in three two hundred dollar payments, in addition to their regular bill, which "must be paid in a timely fashion."

This alone devastated the little family for months, but more persecution for being poor was yet to come:

John was given a car with a blown engine by one of his customers in payment for mechanic work. John changed the engine, got the car in tip-top running shape and had it registered. A neighbor recommended that John and Jane call his insurance broker for insurance on their new vehicle. They were given a really good quote in view of their good driving history; Jane had had a speeding ticket in 1995, paid it, and her record was clear. John had backed into a parked car in a parking lot in 1997, and his insurance company had paid the amount of $567 to have the car fixed. Both John and Jane have current and clear driver's licenses.

The insurance company called a day after the original good quote and told John and Jane that the company was very sorry, but the original quote was in error and the amount to secure the insurance would be twice the originally quoted amount. John and Jane were not only unpleasantly surprised, they were horrified! When they asked the reason for the increase, they were told that they had a "less than average credit report."

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