Life’s necessities getting tougher to reach

Friday, July 9, 1999 | 11:41 a.m.

A U.S. Census report released today says one in five Americans have trouble making ends meet and paying for necessities such as food or utilities.

The report, which cites figures from 1995, says about 49 million people live in households where members had trouble keeping up with rent or mortgage payments and bills for food, utilities and medical care.

About 5 percent of them didn't have enough to eat, and more than a third of all people who reported a lack of basic necessities were children.

"I can't really tell you whether things are getting better or worse. It just shows a picture as to how people get by," Kurt Bauman, the report's author, said today.

"It's interesting to see that such a large share of people have trouble making ends meet at one time or another," Bauman said. "Even the middle class has troubles."

Officials at Nevada utility companies say a certain percentage of customers always have trouble paying their bills on time, and any increases they've seen in overdue payments are mostly due to Southern Nevada's growth.

Nevada Power receives about 6,000 requests for new electrical service each month, so it's hard to tell whether the increase in overdue bills they are seeing is purely economics, Sonia Headen, a company spokeswoman, said.

The power company gives extensions of up to 90 days to customers with good payment histories when they have a run of hard luck, Headen said. The important thing is to call as soon as a financial problem arises.

"We will work with people," she said. "If you're going to have problems, give us a call right away. Don't wait."

Roger Buehrer, spokesman for Southwest Gas, said about 15 percent of customers' monthly payments come in late, and that's been holding relatively steady the past few years.

"It runs a little higher in the winter, but overall that's the average," Buehrer said. "Our turn-offs are only a fraction of that."

Still, every time a large company closes in an area Southwest Gas serves, the company braces itself for an eruption of unpaid bills, he said.

"There's been a major mine closed in southern Arizona, and that's going to leave a lot of people out of work," Buehrer said. "And certainly the gold mining in Northern Nevada could affect that as well. We're watching that."

Clark County Social Services has had an increase in people seeking financial help as well, but again the area's growth makes it difficult to determine whether there are more economic problems or simply more people, Bertha Warrick, assistant director, said.

However, obtaining medical care definitely is a problem for many.

"We see more of a need on the medical side than the financial side. It has increased significantly," Warrick said.

"We are unique in that the area has a lot of service jobs, so people have jobs. But that job may not have medical coverage," she said. "They're what people classify as the working poor."

Most seeking help from Warrick's office are working-age adults because children qualify for medical coverage under the state's welfare program. A large number of clients are older people whose Medicare coverage doesn't pay for prescription drugs.

Still, older folks seem to be faring better than the youngest members of the population, the census report says. Fewer than 10 percent of people age 70 or older lived in a household where someone had trouble meeting at least one basic need as compared to 29 percent of children.

"Maybe it's because they grew up during the Great Depression," Bauman said of the disparities between young and old. "Or maybe it's because they have more settled lives. Maybe they've figure out how to do it."