Over 150 hungry people flock to the truck with food. Some of them get back to the shade, tormented by the sun, while others, “armed” with hats and umbrellas are waiting eagerly for the truck to open the doors. Surprisingly, this not an image in Somalia or Afghanistan. People who rush to the bags with canned fruit and food live in Las Vegas, until recently the U.S. pole of fun, writes Financial Times.
Looking at the despair in the eyes of the elders and women with children in their arms waiting in queue in the heat, you realize that the place was transformed overnight from the “city of opportunity” to a city where it is possible to die of starvation.
In Washington, politicianshold heated discussions on how to create new jobs, and Obama, in the context of approaching elections, proposes a new plan to fight unemployment before the joint session of chambers of Congress on September 7.
Las Vegas is located in Nevada, the U.S. state with the highest unemployment rate and most mortgages. Over 12% of the working age population of Nevada does not find work and almost 13% of children were expelled from their homes with their parents, according to the research of Annie E. Casey Foundation, a nonprofit organization that aims to protect disadvantaged children in the United States.
You can see a plight of statistics on the streets. Deanna Hudson is one of those waiting from 7:30 in the morning for the food truck. She worked as human resources manager at a company that manufactured electronics for the casinos. The company went bankrupt two years ago and since then she failed to find work again.
“Everyone here is trying to find a job. For a job opening, there are 20-30 applications, so it is hard. I came here just to get food”, Deanna says with tears in her eyes.
Las Vegas was for many years the city with the highest growth rate in the U.S. and the highest employment rate. People from all over the country were coming here attracted by low taxes, the booming real estate market and many jobs available in casinos and hotels or other companies in the tourism industry.
Currently, the state is first in mortgage foreclosures, bankruptcy, unemployment and there are 300,000 people who wonder where is their next lunch, said Brian Burton, president of Three Square, a non-profit organization that distributes food in town.
“Unemployment in parts of Las Vegas is over 20% and one in five children is hungry”, he adds.
Las Vegas has always seemed immune to imbalances in the economy and recovered quickly after the recession of the 1990s and early 2000s. The pace of construction was not affected by the crises of that period and there were jobs available at all times, even when the number of tourists was down. Today Las Vegas has become the area with most affected economy in the United States.
Unemployment has exploded, real estate business went bankrupt, and tourists, essential for the economy of the city, come less often.
“The years 2008 and 2009 were brutal”, says Jim Murren, chief executive of MGM Resorts, the world’s second largest firm operating in the gambling industry. MGM Resorts is the largest employer in Nevada and holds two of the largest casinos in the world: Bellagio and Mirage.
Lack of liquidity in the market has stopped the building of new hotels and many people are unemployed. Ongoing real estate projects such as construction of Echelon and Fontainebleu casinos were suspended, while others, like Harmon Tower is in an advanced stage of decay and it will be demolished.
There are not many reasons for optimism. Maria Alvarado, one of the women in the queue to receive food, says that she was having a well paid job before the crisis.
“We had a house and I used to earn $5,000 per month (before 2008). It is a very dramatic change for me now. I will get used to it”, says Maria.