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This is the public face of an economy that has tumbled off the edge of a cliff: 9.7 percent unemployment in North Carolina and a half million jobs lost nationwide last month alone.
This is the private face of that catastrophe: Investigations of child abuse and neglect are up 53 percent over a year ago in Mecklenburg County and investigations into abuse of disabled adults up 37 percent.
Ouch.
When we think of the victims of this recession, we think of workers and lost jobs. We also think of the pain in financial terms: lost wages, lost homes, lost security.
But when times go sour, so do we. The people around us are the ones who pay for that.
The most vulnerable
“I think it's because of the stress of the economy,” said Mary Wilson, director of the Mecklenburg Department of Social Services. “We were not seeing these numbers last year. The economy is the only thing that has changed.”
Those statistics were not the reason a group of editors and reporters from the Charlotte Observer met with Wilson this week. The purpose was to get to know her after coverage and criticism of a DSS hire that had the appearance of cronyism.
But the numbers stole the show. In addition to abuse and neglect investigations rising, Wilson shared these hallmarks of recession:
Applications for food stamps have zoomed 36 percent year-to-date this fiscal year over the same period in 2008.
Applications for public assistance of all kinds are up 21 percent.
Applications for help from North Carolina's temporary assistance to needy families program have risen 16 percent.
You expect more people to need help feeding their families when unemployment spikes. You expect more people to need help of the kind public agencies such as DSS provides.
But you don't necessarily think about abuse and neglect being part of the suffering – or the fact that our most vulnerable – children and the disabled – are put at greater risk by harsh times.
“There's more screaming, more yelling, more fighting, and teachers and others are seeing signs and calling,” Wilson said.
People in peril
Reports of child abuse and neglect don't always mean those things have happened. But when they increase more than 50 percent, it's a signal families are in distress.
That's an important point to remember, for two reasons, as this community navigates an era unlike any most of us can remember.
The first: These are exceptional economic times. Each of us has an obligation to be watchful and ready to help the people around us who are feeling deep stress.
The second: As public budgets are being cut, there are some responsibilities a county can't turn its back on. Protecting children and disabled adults is such a responsibility. When adults are under strain, kids (and vulnerable adults) pay.
We see the people who have lost their jobs. We glimpse the people who have lost their homes.
We don't always see the other victims of recession – victims who often suffer alone, in silence. The abuse and neglect investigation numbers are a snapshot of a community under stress.
No statistics better show the human side of an economic plunge.
E-mail mschulken@charlotteobserver.com.
