Twenty-six-year-old Megan Biggs grew up like thousands of other upper-middle-class youngsters in East Memphis: private schools, family vacations, lavish possessions, and a promising future.

An only child, she had a successful journalist for a mother and a prominent attorney father. Life was good, very good. Then Biggs turned 21 and was kicked off of her parents’ health insurance. That was just the beginning of her woes. A serious knee injury largely incapacitated her and a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis rendered her literally “uninsurable.”

Professional office visits, appointments with specialists, access to medical test facilities, and assistance with prescriptions are among the services that have been available to uninsured for more than 25 years at the Church Health Center.

“I sustained a knee injury performing martial arts,” she said. “And after being held at gunpoint during a crime, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress. I had no insurance, and I had been turned down by every major insurance company you can think of. I never imagined that I would ever have trouble getting health insurance. I don’t know what I would have done without the Church Health Center.”

Biggs works as a free-lance journalist and has a part-time gig in a Collierville hair salon. Health insurance through an employer is not an option for her.

Dr. Scott Morris, executive director of the Church Health Center (CHC), said the clinic has provided quality, affordable healthcare for working, uninsured people and their families.  Now, the largest faith-based center of its type in the country is opening its doors for upper-middle-class households that have been battered in the economic downturn of the past three years. They are “the new clientele of social service agencies.”

“There are generally two profiles of suburban clients whose numbers have gone up considerably,” Dr. Morris said. “You have a female head of household who has worked 15 years for a company. Her 40 hours per week has gone down to 25. And generally, when work hours go below 30 per week, an employee loses his or her health insurance.”

“Many times, there is some chronic condition involved – high blood pressure, diabetes, a heart condition. Now, with no health insurance, this mother has a chronic condition to keep under control and children who need medical care. They turn to the CHC for help.”

The other profile is the executive who loses a six-figure job and has to take one making $18,000 with no health insurance.

For many formerly well-to-do patients, there is a culture shock, Dr. Morris said.

“These new clients have come to us in stunning numbers,” he said. “They live in Germantown and have made six-figure salaries for a good part of their professional lives. After losing the job in downsizing a year or so ago, they have exhausted their savings and other resources during a long and fruitless job search. After taking what he can get, making $18,000 to $20,000, no health insurance is offered by these employers. With no other option available, they end up at the Church Health Center.”

Morris said in the past there has been a consistent ratio of 70:30, black to white clients. “Now, in the walk-in clinic, the racial make-up of clients is almost totally reversed – 70:30 white to black.”

The Hispanic population has maintained a pretty steady flow. But the way “black and white numbers have flipped is stunning,” said Morris.

Suburban clients now are coming from Germantown, Collierville, Cordova and rural areas in Millington.

“Recovery from this recession will take time for people of all economic levels,” said Morris. “We expect that new healthcare initiatives for the uninsured will improve the quality of healthcare, but we anticipate that there will always be a need for the services of the Church Health Center.”

From MIFA benefactors to clients

Program director of MIFA Emergency Services Phyllis Phillips (left) and staffer Dorothy Tuggle confer on emergency applications. The staff sees hundreds of clients each month. “We try to help as many as we can with the resources we have available,” Phillips said. (Courtesy photos)

At Memphis Inter-Faith Association (MIFA), Emergency Services program manager Phyllis Phillips has former benefactors who have become clients.

“Some people who have donated clothing, money, and food to us in the past now come in to get food vouchers,” she said. “More and more, families out in the eastern suburbs are finding themselves in emergency situations. Between 7:30-10:30 a.m. each weekday, we give out food vouchers for non-perishable goods. Clients can go to church food pantries supported by MIFA and located throughout Greater Memphis.”

Phillips, who has been at the organization for 22 years, describes the shift in the general client profile as “unbelievable.”

“You must understand that our clients and their families are in emergency situations,” she said. “They are in crisis from a loss of income through a job lay-off, reduction in pay, off work without sick pay, or a house fire or some other disaster. Families with children, even in Germantown and Collierville, are suffering because of the employment situation. People cannot find jobs, even out in the suburbs. This recession is affecting everybody.”

Mary E. Hamlett, M.Ed., manager of MIFA Emergency Housing for Memphis and Shelby County, said many suburban families looking for assistance are not familiar with guidelines and how they work. There’s been a learning curve for them.

“We offer families assistance with rent, but not with mortgage payments,” said Hamlett. “Sometimes, people want us to help them maintain their way of life. But we don’t pay $2,500 mortgages. That’s not how our services work. We assist with paying rent. We stave off the threat of homelessness and help them get back on their feet. Families, no matter what community they live in, are grateful for our housing services.”

According to MIFA Emergency Services figures, there were 834 clients in June of 2009. MIFA had a total of 1,206 walk-ins last month.

“Our numbers are growing, but that’s to be expected as people weather this economy,” said Phillips. “We want to do as much as we can for as many as we can. That’s why we’re here.”

(For more information: MIFA – 527-0208; CHC –272-0003.)

The new working poor

Special to the Tri-State Defender

Today’s economic crisis finds families working harder yet falling further behind.  News of falling home values, failing corporate and financial institutions, and still-rising unemployment and underemployment only gets at part of the problem.

American workers who could once count on sheer grit and effort to raise their living standards and secure a solid middle-class life, have, instead, been treading water.

“Even before the perfect storm hit Wall Street, housing, and the banks, the economy was already broken for workers,” said Lawrence Mishel, lead author of The State of Working America 2008-09.“That means our challenge won’t end when the recession does. Unless we fix our broken economy so that it will start to provide fair value for work again, working families will keep losing ground.”

The book, published in its final print edition by the Economic Policy Institute and Cornell University Press, strives to show where America’s workers stand today and how they got here.

Co-authored by Mishel, Jared Bernstein and Heidi Shierholz, the book explores the widening gap between the working class and the wealthiest few.

On the potential side, the authors show that during the 2001-07 business cycle the nation’s output (GDP) grew 2.5 percent per month – nearly 20 percent across the full recession and recovery cycle.

If that healthy growth had been broadly shared, it would have benefited people at all income levels. In reality, however, most gains were concentrated among the wealthiest few, making this business cycle the first on record in which inflation-adjusted income for middle-class families was actually lower at the end of the cycle than at its beginning. (The Census Bureau first collected this data in the mid-1940s.)

“The U.S. jobs-creation machine broke down during the business cycle of 2000-07, leaving millions of families facing an enormous and long-lasting threat to their economic security,” said Shierholz. “We need to rebuild our economy with longer-term policies that can move us toward full employment and true shared prosperity.”

Key findings reported in The State of Working America 2008-09 include:

The rich got the lion’s share: About 91 percent of all income growth in the country went to the top 10 percent by income – leaving just over 9 percent to be parceled out among the remaining 90 percent.

Worker output raced ahead but pay trailed farther behind: The typical worker’s compensation (wages plus benefits), which has traditionally risen in sync with productivity gains, began falling behind in the 1970s. Since then the gap has widened dramatically as productivity kept climbing while compensation has remained essentially stagnant.

The CEO-worker pay gap grew by a factor of 10: In 1973, the average CEO was paid $27 for every dollar paid to a typical worker; by 2007 that ratio had grown to $275 to $1.

Young workers now start out behind their peers from previous generations: Young men with only a high school education earned $2.55 less per hour in 2007 (after inflation adjustment) than their predecessors did in 1973 (down from $14.34 to $11.79). Real hourly pay for young women fell $1.05 per hour (from $10.50 to $9.45) over the same period.

Jobs requiring a college degree or some college are at the highest risk of being off-shored: 34 percent  of jobs in the “college degree” category and 38 percent  requiring “some college” are rated as “highly off-shorable.”

The life expectancy gap between the economically best – and worst-off Americans widened significantly – from 2.8 years in 1980 to 4.5 years in 2000.

Four out of 10 adult Americans forgo needed health care due to costs. Among those with below-average incomes that proportion rises to almost 6 out of 10.