Posts Tagged ‘recession effects’

Amish church leaders in northern Indiana have relented in shunning one modern amenity — unemployment checks — to help unemployed members of their community survive.

It’s no longer possible for many Amish to earn a living through farming, due to rising land prices. Up to half of Amish men in Indiana now work in factories, according to a Los Angeles Times story.

Amish religious beliefs normally frown on such things as electricity, insurance and automobiles (the local Wal-Mart in northern Indiana has a hitching post for horse and buggies), but repeated rounds of factory layoffs have forced elders to relax the rules. The unemployment rate in Elkhart and LaGrange counties, where Amish populations are centered, has reached about 19%, the Times reported.

Although furniture-making has always been a mainstay occupation for the Amish, local shops aren’t able to hire all of the available workers because the demand for furniture like Amish-made tables, which retail for between $750 and $2,200, is off, too.

It’s been said that this recession is unique in that it’s cut a wide swath through every segment of the population, hurting those at every income level, in every occupation and of every age.

How vulnerable is the industry that you work in?

There’s nary an aspect of our lives that hasn’t been affected by the recession, and now it appears it’s even dogging us into the afterlife.

Funeral directors report a surge in the cremation rate as families short on cash opt for an alternative that costs less than half that of a traditional burial. A traditional ground burial with limo(s), a wake, service, embalming and a burial plot can easily cost $7,000 or more.

The rate of cremation has been steadily increasing all along ⎯ the national rate stood at 34% in 2006, according to the Baltimore Sun.

There are several reasons for this. Americans live more mobile lives. (Have urn, will travel. If you wish to visit your loved one after they’ve departed, you’ll have to commit to remaining within driving distance of the cemetery for the rest of your natural life.)

A growing environmental consciousness also favors cremation, which is a more eco-friendly choice than embalming with a toxic brew typically made up of formaldehyde, methanol, ethanol and other solvents; cremation also frees up open space that would otherwise be locked up by grave sites forever.

Now, though, the general trend favoring cremation is becoming even more entrenched, thanks to economic pressures that fail to spare even grieving family members.

If money was tight, would you consider paring back expenses, and possibly cremation, when handling a loved one’s funeral and burial arrangements? Or would you spare no expense?