Recent Work – Scenes from a Recession
"For 20 years I was a welder making good money, but that work went away and now I'm here," said Manuel Pizquada as he cooks sausages while dusk settles over the Solano County Fair carnival. "It was the only job I could find. It's not perfect, but it's work."
Throughout 2008 and 2009, as the world economy slipped into the deepest recession in a generation, California was especially hard hit. Unemployment was rising,
Kenia Monday checks out the neighborhood near a bank-owned foreclosure property while on a tour of foreclosure sales for potential home buyers put on by Gateway Realty Saturday in Fairfield. Two busloads of people were driven around Fairfield and Suisun City and were showed "just the tip of the iceberg of the available foreclosure properties," said Gateway broker Steve Spencer.
Job seekers browse the various booths at the Solano Workforce Investment Board Career Fair Thursday in Fairield. More than 2300 people attended the event. Event organizers said that the turnout was three times higher than the previous years and that the average age of attendees increased markedly.
A field full of discarded vehicles turned in during the "Cash for Clunkers" program sits in front of car dealerships, two of which were recently closed, in Fairfield, Calif. The program, which provided vouchers toward the purchase of more efficient vehicles was extremely popular with consumers. However, critics say the improvements required in the bill -- as little as 1 mile per gallon for certain trucks -- were so lax that the government basically subsidized consumers who swapped one gas guzzler for another.
E.J. Freeman cries as he leaves the NorthBay Pediatric Center for the last time, while his grandmother Elvie Echols tries to console him. "I just can't believe that this place is gone," Echols said. "I'm going to everything I can for this boy, but everything is definitely going to be harder for us now." NorthBay closed the center, the only pediatric rehabilitation facility for disabled youth in the county, due to budget cuts brought on by the recession.
Bettye Graves talks with her daughter Diasuane while recovering from her open heart surgery. Graves is on a fixed income and is raising three of her great-grandchildren. When finaces became too tight the family had to borrow money from a family friend to afford groceries. "I worked for 30 years, but when I was planning for retirement I wasn't planing on raising three kids in my 70s," Graves said. "Times are tough, but then again the kids are what keeps me going."
" I sit next to the window because I'm pretty sure it's warmer outside than it is in the house," said Mary Miller as she sits wrapped in a blanket in her cold Vacaville home. The furnace was not working when she bought the home and has spent the last three winters wrapped in blankets and in arthritic pain. She wrote into a contest for a free furnace from a local company and next Tuesday she will go from a 50 degree home at 9 A.M. to a 75 degree home at 11 A.M when the new heater is installed.
Parents, teachers and students of Bransford Elementary School in Fairfield Calif. console each other after the Fairfield Suisun Unified School District school board voted to close their school on May, 26, 2009 in Fairfield, Calif. At the meeting the school board voted to close three elementary and one middle school in the district. The school closures are a direct result of budget cuts at the state and local levels.
"Ugh, no one's ever gonna hire me," says Keith Noble, 22, at Dream Catchers empowerment office in Fairfield. Noble recently returned to the workforce and is finding it extremely difficult to find work in the downturned economy. Unemployment rates for African American males aged 16-24 reached a staggering high of more than 30 percent during 2009 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Posted on Wednesday, May 19th, 2010 at 5:28 pm. Filed under: Photography RSS 2.0 feed.
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"For 20 years I was a welder making good money, but that work went away and now I'm here," said Manuel Pizquada as he cooks sausages while dusk settles over the Solano County Fair carnival. "It was the only job I could find. It's not perfect, but it's work."
Throughout 2008 and 2009, as the world economy slipped into the deepest recession in a generation, California was especially hard hit. Unemployment was rising,
Kenia Monday checks out the neighborhood near a bank-owned foreclosure property while on a tour of foreclosure sales for potential home buyers put on by Gateway Realty Saturday in Fairfield. Two busloads of people were driven around Fairfield and Suisun City and were showed "just the tip of the iceberg of the available foreclosure properties," said Gateway broker Steve Spencer.
Job seekers browse the various booths at the Solano Workforce Investment Board Career Fair Thursday in Fairield. More than 2300 people attended the event. Event organizers said that the turnout was three times higher than the previous years and that the average age of attendees increased markedly.
A field full of discarded vehicles turned in during the "Cash for Clunkers" program sits in front of car dealerships, two of which were recently closed, in Fairfield, Calif. The program, which provided vouchers toward the purchase of more efficient vehicles was extremely popular with consumers. However, critics say the improvements required in the bill -- as little as 1 mile per gallon for certain trucks -- were so lax that the government basically subsidized consumers who swapped one gas guzzler for another.
E.J. Freeman cries as he leaves the NorthBay Pediatric Center for the last time, while his grandmother Elvie Echols tries to console him. "I just can't believe that this place is gone," Echols said. "I'm going to everything I can for this boy, but everything is definitely going to be harder for us now." NorthBay closed the center, the only pediatric rehabilitation facility for disabled youth in the county, due to budget cuts brought on by the recession.
Bettye Graves talks with her daughter Diasuane while recovering from her open heart surgery. Graves is on a fixed income and is raising three of her great-grandchildren. When finaces became too tight the family had to borrow money from a family friend to afford groceries. "I worked for 30 years, but when I was planning for retirement I wasn't planing on raising three kids in my 70s," Graves said. "Times are tough, but then again the kids are what keeps me going."
" I sit next to the window because I'm pretty sure it's warmer outside than it is in the house," said Mary Miller as she sits wrapped in a blanket in her cold Vacaville home. The furnace was not working when she bought the home and has spent the last three winters wrapped in blankets and in arthritic pain. She wrote into a contest for a free furnace from a local company and next Tuesday she will go from a 50 degree home at 9 A.M. to a 75 degree home at 11 A.M when the new heater is installed.
Parents, teachers and students of Bransford Elementary School in Fairfield Calif. console each other after the Fairfield Suisun Unified School District school board voted to close their school on May, 26, 2009 in Fairfield, Calif. At the meeting the school board voted to close three elementary and one middle school in the district. The school closures are a direct result of budget cuts at the state and local levels.
"Ugh, no one's ever gonna hire me," says Keith Noble, 22, at Dream Catchers empowerment office in Fairfield. Noble recently returned to the workforce and is finding it extremely difficult to find work in the downturned economy. Unemployment rates for African American males aged 16-24 reached a staggering high of more than 30 percent during 2009 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.